By: Steve Wilmot
I’m convinced after four decades of ministry the best thing you can do for someone is pray for them.
I used to try to counsel or comfort or instruct people with God’s Word. It met with some success, but the most effective I’ve found is prayer. When I ask God to enter into a situation and do his work, he comes and acts in some very cool ways.
Have you ever been going about your day when out of the blue someone pops into your mind? You hadn’t been thinking about him before but suddenly there he is.
Have you ever considered it might be God who put him on your mind because he wants you to stop for a moment and pray for him. Right then and there. The best thing you can do when God does that is follow through on that nudge and pray.
You may never know why God put this person on your heart, or what happened because you prayed. That’s okay. You don’t have to know. You did what God prompted you to do.
But sometimes you’ll hear the rest of the story, and it will send chills down your spine. You’ll be glad you followed the nudge and prayed for that person.
Here’s a true story to prove this point and encourage you to act on every prodding from God to pray you get. It’s told by a missionary on furlough from Africa.
I served at a small field hospital in Africa, and every two weeks I traveled by bicycle through the jungle to a nearby city for supplies. This was a two-day journey and required camping overnight at the halfway point.
On one of these journeys, I arrived in the city where I planned to collect money from a bank, buy medicine and supplies, and begin my two-day journey back to the field hospital.
Upon arrival in the city, I observed two men fighting. One of them was seriously injured. I treated him and told him about the Lord Jesus Christ. I bought the supplies and medicine, left for home, and arrived without incident.
Two weeks later, I repeated the trip. When I entered the city, the young man I had treated approached me and told me he had known I carried money and medicines.
He said, “Some friends and I followed you into the jungle, knowing you would camp overnight. We planned to kill you and take your money and drugs. But just as we were about to move into your camp, we saw 26 armed guards surrounding you.”
I laughed at this and told him I was all alone at my jungle campsite. The young man pressed the point. “No sir, I was not the only person to see these guards.
My five friends also witnessed them, and we all counted them. It was because of those guards we were afraid and left you alone.”
As a man in the audience listened to the missionary tell his story, he jumped to his feet and interrupted him. “Sorry for disrupting your talk, Sir, but could you tell me the exact day this happened?”
The missionary told him the date. Hardly able to contain himself, the man in the audience told him his story.
“On the night of your incident in Africa, it was morning here and I was on the golf course about to putt. I felt the urge to pray for you. In fact, it was so strong, I called men in this church to meet me here in this auditorium to pray for you.”
He asked those men who met with him to stand. Those guys who set aside what they were doing to gather and pray. Scattered through the room, these men stood.
The missionary wasn’t concerned with who they were; he was too busy counting how many men he saw. There were 26!
Twenty-six men who followed God’s nudge to pray for this missionary. Twenty-six men whose prayers transformed them into 26 armed guards the would-be thieves spotted surrounding this missionary.
This story is one of thousands that could be told about how the Spirit of God moves into situations and people’s lives when we follow God’s nudge and pause to pray.
If you ever sense a similar prodding, go with it. Drop what you’re doing and pray. It’s a powerful yet simple way to partner with God in his work.
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Steve Wilmot is a former Edgerton, Ohio area pastor who now seeks “to still bear fruit in old age” through writing. He is the author of seven books designed to assist believers to make steady progress on their spiritual journey.