We were gathered in a room praying when he entered. It was obvious he was escaping the heat. After a few awkwardly pensive moments, he spoke. "My truck is out of gas, it’s just over at the gas station, and I have no money, could you please…" Just then, one of us interrupted with "We would be glad to pray for you? In fact, we were just having a prayer meeting."
What happened next seems a bit embarrassing for people who say Jesus is their friend, but it happened. We prayed for him. I know, the shame. One of us prayed he would find the resources for fuel. Another prayed for safe travel home. We were thoughtful enough to pray for his family and the new job he was trying to drive to. What noble people we were.
Have you ever been doing something important and had something interrupt you? So annoying, isn't it? We were praying and got interrupted - not by a man in need, but by the Holy Spirit. As our compassionate words flowed from our lips, we all just hit a proverbial wall. One of the guys said, "What are we doing praying? This man has already prayed, we are supposed to be the answer." With that, we all took a few bucks from our pockets, filled the man's gas tank, got him some dinner, and even sent home a bit of cash. We never saw him again, and were it not for the Holy Spirit, we might not have ever really seen him in the first place.
My point? Sometimes God wants us to be the answer to a prayer, not the one who is praying. Okay, read that again. More than 95% of the people on this planet pray. They pray for their families, their future, their pain, for food, for work, for friendship, or because they are lonely, hurting, afraid, and ashamed. Prayer is happening.
A repeated storyline in the Bible goes like this. People are in trouble. People pray. God hears. God picks a friend. God sends his friend as a partner. Prayer answered. Look around you today, friend and partner with God, whose prayers will God use you to answer?
Our team took these thoughts on prayer to North India on one of our trips. We kept asking, "Whose prayers will God use us to answer?" There were about a dozen churches whose pastors were just hanging on, so we purchased approximately 6 months of food for each. There were several battered and abandoned women who just needed a chance to earn a living without harming their bodies - so we gave them sewing machines to start a sewing business. There was a compound that daily ran out of water for their school and the families that lived there - we built them a 12,000-gallon water tank. Every person we served said the same thing, "This is an answer to my prayers."
Driving to work one morning, I was praying that God would let me be like Jesus to someone. I stopped at the bank to get some cash. Out front was a man I recognized, asking for food. I knew him because a few weeks earlier, I had slipped him a $20 and then patted myself on the back. As I was punching my numbers into the ATM, I could hear him…"Could you…I am hungry… Will you…" Then, I got interrupted. "So you want to be Jesus to someone today?" With a sigh and bit of ironic guilt, I asked the man if I could buy him breakfast.
We went, and he ate...a lot. I got into my car and got interrupted again. "Go back in there and tell him that this was from Jesus, not you." I did, and as the man turned to face me, he said, "Finally. A Jesus I can see and believe in - what an answer to my prayers!"
What are your neighbors praying? What are your co-workers praying? What is your family praying? Let's try praying this, "Jesus, as your friend and partner, how can you use me to answer someone else's prayer?"