Published 11/2/19
By Greg Johnson
What If...
You wake up one morning not feeling good at all. You’re feverish, but even with all of the covers on, you still feel chilled. When we come into your room to get you up for school, we see you don’t look so hot. You’re not faking anything to stay home... you’re sick with the flu!
Staying home from school is normally pretty fun, but when you’re this sick, all you can do is lie in bed or on the couch and wait for it to go away. You have absolutely no energy to do anything that requires even the least amount of effort.
Before Dad leaves for work, he and Mom come into your room to pray for you. He prays that God will heal you this morning, and that you won’t be sick all day long. Mom prays the same thing. We seem so confident, as if God can really heal a flu in a few hours when it usually takes a day to work its way through your system.
About nine o’clock that morning, the chills stop and your head isn’t as warm as it was when you work up. A half hour later you notice that you’re hungry, so you walk out to the kitchen to tell Mom. She feels your head, then takes your temperature. It’s 98.8! Almost normal!
After eating breakfast you still feel great and head off to your room to play. Then it hits you: Mom and Dad both prayed that you’d get well this morning. God answered our prayers!
Questions to Think On
• Have you ever seen God answer a prayer in such an immediate, obvious way like this before?
• How do you respond when you notice that God has answered your prayers?
• Though God doesn’t answer every one of our prayers so quickly, sometimes he does. Is God still answering your prayers when he chooses to take a little longer to do it?
• Mom and Dad: Talk about times when it has been obvious that God has answered your prayers in a miraculous way
What Does God Have to Say?
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone.
(c)