By Chris WittsFriday 26 Aug 2022Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
The 2019 Time Magazine named this movie as one of the best 10 films of the year, starring Tom Hanks, and it was the delightful film that you might have seen called ‘A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood’. I saw this with my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The story of Fred Rogers, well known and loved in the US for his children’s television show called ‘Mr Roger’s Neighbourhood’.
Fred Rogers name is legendary in the US. He was a Presbyterian minister turned TV host, he had a very warm personality and a great approach with other people.
Now I won’t reveal the whole story in case you want to see it. But it is revealed that he prayed daily for every person that he met. He mentioned them by name. He knelt next to his bed and prayed that God would be with them. How would you feel knowing that someone was praying for you? Would it surprise or amuse you? Would you appreciate such an act of kindness, or would it be quite confusing? Why would someone else pray for me?
Purpose and Power of Prayer
Well, in fact, it’s one of the most powerful things that you can do – to pray for someone else. And maybe you’ve done that already, and that’s great. Did you know that one of the most special ways that we can find relationship with God and with each other is through prayer?
It’s talking to God, and whether it’s spoken out loud, whispered or in our own thinking, prayer is a mighty tool we’re actually opening. Our hearts and soul are asking God to come in and bring peace and comfort to those people that are naming. And when we pray, we are not alone. We can be assured that God is listening and hearing our prayers. We can go to God at any moment, talk to him. We can rejoice or we can cry out in sadness, ask for help or sit still knowing that he’s with us. And each time we have a conversation with God, we can be assured that he’s listening. We’ve got this opportunity to not just pray for ourselves and our own needs, but to pray for others. So whether you’re alone or in a group, you can go to your Heavenly Father.
He truly knows our heart. And in every situation we can offer prayer. A friend might say to you, “will you pray for me?” Going to God reminds us that he is in control, not us. And we can pray for family, friends and strangers. We can pray for animals, the world, things that are happening all around us. We can pray for the unknown. In fact, anything at all. Nothing is too small to pray about. Have you ever lost your car keys? You can pray about that as well.
I read this true story about a missionary who had been ministering for God in a foreign country, and this was many years ago. And in those days he and his ministry team travelled mostly by donkey along some very rugged trails to the remote villages in the mountains where most of the indigenous people had never heard about the gospel or even seen a white person. And the team had made an agreement with one another that if anyone of the team got sick or were unable to travel, they would go on without that person who had fallen ill. Well, you guessed that one day this particular missionary got very sick. He couldn’t ride his donkey. He couldn’t continue with the team.
So the rest of them left him in a remote village without any medical care. After they moved on, this missionary’s health got worse and worse. And he knew that unless God intervened, he would die on the third night. Sick as he was, he could only pray. “Father God help me” and he wondered if he would live through the night. But the sun came up the next morning. He discovered he was not only alive, but he was feeling better. He got up from the mat where he was, in fact, dying. He ate some food.
The next day he was able to climb back on his donkey and he caught up with the ministry team. Two years later, this missionary was home in the US. He was preaching in a church. He told the story of this miraculous healing. And after the service, a woman said, “what was the date of this miraculous healing?” The missionary checked his travel journal and they discovered on the exact date two years earlier, when he’d been lying on his deathbed literally, she had been awoken in the middle of the night by God. She felt an urgent directive to pray for someone in a foreign land. So she prayed for several hours. She didn’t stop praying until she felt the conviction that prayer had been answered. Until that day, when the missionary spoke at her church, she hadn’t known who had needed her prayer that night. It’s a true story. When the missionary was too weak to pray for himself, God had arranged for someone else to hold him up in prayer.
Let’s Pray
Heavenly Father, how amazing it is that my prayer can affect the lives of others. This is powerful stuff. Lord, encourage me to be on the alert and to listen to you and to be concerned for others and to pray for them today, Amen.