Prayer Meeting and Cell Phones

Her cell phone rang loudly in the middle of the special called prayer meeting. Don’t you just hate when your cell phone rings at the wrong time? She couldn’t believe whose number came up on the caller ID. It couldn’t be HIM. She came in to tell the other pray-ers who had called her, but they were so frustrated that she would be so inconsiderate and rude that they wanted nothing of what she was saying. After all, they were earnestly praying for a dear brother in Christ whose life was in danger. This was no time for idle cell phone chit-chat.

The caller was the man for whom they were praying. He had been miraculously rescued and was on his way over to thank them for praying and to tell them the story of how their prayers had been answered. They were so busy praying for him, they never stopped to think that maybe their prayer was being answered at that very moment.

OK, the story didn’t happen exactly that way . . . there were no cell phones. But read the story of the Rhoda and the prayer meeting in Acts 12 and you get the gist of it. In the Acts account, Peter stood and the door and knocked, but Rhoda was so excited she went and told the assembly who was at the door, forgetting to let him in. They didn’t believe her and an argument ensued, as Peter stood outside the door and kept knocking. They finally realized it was him and let him in to tell the story of how God had miraculously freed him from jail and his planned trail the next day. They were praying, but they didn’t believe their prayers would actually be answered.

Tonight at prayer meeting we heard a praise report about a little child for whom we had prayed the previous week. The day after our prayer, the child improved dramatically. Our first reaction was astonishment. Why? Did we not believe our prayer would be answered?

I don’t think our lack of faith is because we believe God cannot answer our prayer, we are fully confident in Him. But often our confidence in our prayers is lacking. We fail to believe that God WILL answer our prayer. Yet the book of Hebrews tells us:

Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. – Hebrews 4:16

You see, the success or failure of our prayer is not dependent on the one praying but rather on the ONE to whom we are praying. We pray confidently not because we are good prayers, but because we are praying before a throne of GRACE where we find MERCY. It’s not about me, it’s about HIM.

So when you pray, trust God to answer your prayer. Whether praying for a lost friend, a personal need in your life or someone’s life whom you know, or even praying for your pastor to have wisdom. TRUST THE ONE TO WHOM YOU PRAY. EXPECT THAT GOD WILL ANSWER AND BEGIN LIVING AS THOUGH HE ALREADY HAS.

And go ahead and unlock the door . . . there’s no telling who is waiting to get in.