The Awesome Power Of Prayer
By Clarence Andrews
There is an old saying, “That prayer changes things.” How many times have you prayed about something in your life that needed to be changed? And how often has that something in your life been changed? I have often used the power of prayer to change the outcome of many things in my life, but not all things were changed. There will be some problems in your life that prayer will not change. When you pray about these problems and they just don’t seem to go away, then, it may be God’s divine will that you go through whatever it may be. There are some things we will go through because God has it there for a purpose. The power of prayer can cover many things, but when it is divinely sent you can pray and ask God for the strength to endure. Let me give you an example of the power of prayer and standing firm in the word. Many years ago I was working as a security officer at a plant. During my shift I was required to make clock rounds throughout the plant; clock rounds are when you take a specially made clock, and punch it with keys that are positioned throughout the plant. I had made all my rounds for that night, and my last round was made around 5:00AM. One of the supervisors that worked for the plant came in that morning and needed to get into the security office, but I was making the last round at that time. Now, what I did not tell you is that the human resource manager had been trying repeatedly to get me fired. I went home that morning as I usually do and went to bed, but later that afternoon my supervisor called and told me some distressing news. That supervisor who wanted to get into the security office had told human resources that I was away from my desk for a long period of time and he could not get into the security office. The first thing that human resource manager did was told my supervisor to fire me without even checking my story against the plant supervisor. My supervisor asked me to come out to the plant so we could go over my security log and also the clock tape. You know as well as I do that when people want to get rid of you they will over look even the best evidence in your defense. I knew this man wanted to get me out of the plant, and I figured he was willing to look over any evidence that would clear me; I went down on my knees in prayer, and I used the power of the written word by speaking it as my shield. As I prayed the spirit of the Lord spoke to me and said, “ This was an attack by the enemy” and the spirit of the Lord brought to my mind the words to be spoken over this attack, No weapon formed against me shall prosper. As I drove out to the plant I kept saying those words, “ No weapon formed against me shall prosper.” After I got to the plant my supervisor and I went over the clock and security log, and everything was in my favor, but he and I knew we were dealing with a man who wanted to get rid of me. So all was left for me was to go back home and my supervisor would go over the logs with the manager the next day. When I got home I found a message on my answering machine telling me that a friend of mind was in the hospital and the outlook was not good. In the past when I was worried about my job I thought of no one else or his or her predicament, but that night my mind was not on my job, but on the message I had received about a friend in need. I went down on my knees again in prayer for this lady, and when I got up I called the person who had lefted the message, and told them this woman would be alright, and told her that when she spoke to our friend again, she would tell her that I prayed for her. You see this was not about me, but a plan by the enemy to distract me and keep me from praying for this lady. The Devil knew that in the past all it took to distract me was to threaten my job, and I would forget about you and thought only of myself. But it did not work this time, his aim was to keep me from praying for this woman; so you see, it was never about me, but her. The next day my supervisor told me to come on into work because the manager was acting like nothing ever happened. This was all just a distraction created by the Devil to keep me from doing what God intended for me to do. The Devil’s main target was this woman who he wanted to kill, I was never the intended target, but if he could kill two birds with one stone, it was all the better for him. Prayer is a powerful weapon and the Devil hate it when you can pray with truth and power; the power is in the prayer, and the truth is in the spoken word. In order for your prayers to be effective you must have yourself in the right standing with God, for scripture reads, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. James 5:16. Here’s another example of the power of prayer, this is the story of Hannah, and it can be found in I Samuel 1:1-28. There was a man named Elkanah who had two wives, one was named Hannah, and the other was named Peninnah. Peninnah was able to give Elkanah children, but Hannah was never able to give him any children, and Hannah was very distressed by this. To make matters worse for Hannah, Peninnah would tease her until she would break down and cry; and this went on for a number of years. Hannah went to the temple and prayed fervently and cried unto the Lord. Hannah prayed from her heart without her speaking out loud. This is her prayer to the lord, “And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto Jehovah, and wept sore. And she vowed a vow, and said, O Jehovah of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thy handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thy handmaid, but wilt give unto thy handmaid a man-child, then I will give him unto Jehovah all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head. And it came to pass, as she continued praying before Jehovah, that Eli marked her mouth. Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. 1 Samuel 1:10-13. The Lord heard Hannah’s prayer and blessed her with a son who she named Samuel. Because Hannah had dedicated her first born to the lord, God blessed her to have more children. The power of prayer can change things in your life, just as Hannah’s life was changed because of her prayer, her prayer turned her situation around. If you have been praying about something and it has not turned around, or you have not receive what you are praying for, don’t give up, keep believing and standing on the promises of god’s word. Many times God will not answer your prayer right away, because, he wants to test your faith, and some times he can’t answer your prayer right then, because there may be something not right in your spiritual walk. I’m going to give you one more example of the power of prayer. Years ago my ex-wife and I needed another car, and our finances were not all that good. A friend of her’s took us both to look for cars and we ran into one problem after another. We came back home and I prayed about a new car that night, and I later told her that the lord had instructed us to go back out on that up coming Saturday. That next Saturday we went out looking, but this time we went to a new car dealership. I told my wife not to tell the man that we had a small down payment, unless he specifically asks if we had one. The amount of money we had would never have been enough for a decent down payment to begin with. My wife, the salesman and I went out to the lot to pick a car that we wanted. Well, we found a car, and we went back in and the salesman started doing his routine credit check on us. To our surprise everything came back ok, then came the question of a down payment, in which we never really had to answer, because the salesman said, “You know what? I can get you a cash rebate on this car, and you can apply it as a down payment.” We were more than happy to do just that. All in about two hours time we were driving a brand new car off the lot. Once again God came through for me because of prayer. Jesus gave us the secret to praying in scripture, “And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” Mark 11:22-25. There are many more stories I could tell you about how God has answered my prayers, but I think these few are enough. I want you to be encouraged for whatever you are praying about. I want you to know that God does answer prayer, so don’t become discouraged if what you are praying about does not happen right away, but you must continue to trust and believe that God has heard your prayers. If you need someone to stand in agreement with you on something, then write me and I’ll be happy to stand with you in prayer.