thoughts on the news of the day: answered prayer

hmmm…..

            A good friend told me a story about his mom, who is elderly and quite ill.  She had been relatively non-responsive for several days.  Then late last week, one of his friends called to ask how his mom was doing.  “Not very well,” was his reply.  The phone caller replied, “Then we will pray for her at lunchtime.”

            My friend continued to sit with his non-communicative mom but then at about 12:15 p.m., she woke up, sat up and asked to be fed.  She ate well and had a nice conversation with her son before going back to bed for a nap.

            Coincidence?  Was it just happenstance that shortly after a group prayed, an elderly woman got better?  I believe that prayer works and that many times our prayers are answered almost immediately.

            But what about our prayers that are mean-spirited.  I recently saw a bumper sticker that said, “I pray for Obama – Psalms 109:8”.  Now if you check out that particular scripture, you will see that it is not a very nice commentary on our president’s tenure.  Does God answer those prayers, too?  There’s a country song that was popular not too long ago that covers that same subject.  It jokingly says, “I’ll pray that your tire blows out at 110; I pray that all your dreams never come true.”  It’s meant to be funny, but is it?

            Is now the time to bring out that old saying, “Be careful what you pray for, you just might get it?” Maybe sometimes the best prayer to pray is just simply “Thy will be done.”

            hmmm…..