A couple of days ago I wrote about the High 5 Prayer and talked about the impact it has made in my life. My church has been going through 21 days of prayer and they gave each member a hand out with 5 key strategies for prayer. You can catch up on the blog here. Also I failed to tell you what church I've been attending so here's a link for you to browse on by. OneChapel
I wanted to share a quick testimony of the power of prayer as it relates to the prayer points I have been encouraged to pray with. My mother-in-law rides horses for competition in the rodeo circuit and has recently earned herself a spot at a world competition in Georgia. The horse she competes with is big, powerful and fast. They call him Hollywood and recently he's been acting like a star with all his winnings. Earlier this week my mother-in-laws neighbor called to share her concern about a horse that was rolling around at the ranch. For those of you who don't know much about horses they don't tend to lie around or roll in the dirt for long periods of time. When they do it almost always means trouble. This was the case with Hollywood. His small intestine was twisted and he had been rolling around to try to make himself feel better only making the matter worse. They call this condition colic. I don't know a lot about horses but I was told that day that a high percentage of horses that develop colic don't make it. When we found out the news from the vet that this was the case with Hollywood doubt, fear and sadness crept into the room. It quickly made its way into our hearts as we pondered the idea of my mother-in-law loosing a horse and not making it to the world competition after so much training and hard work.
And then, like a light of hope shining in darkness, my wonderful wife says something to the tune of, "We're not going to accept this. The Bible tells us that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for it will be done for them by the Father in heaven. So we are going to come together, pray and believe God for a different outcome." She had remembered the strategy. She wasn't going to quit. She knew better and she flexed the prayer muscle. My faith was immediately bolstered and I too recalled the scripture she brought to our attention. I also recalled John 14:12-14 telling us that we should pray in the name of Jesus. We stopped what we were doing. We gathered together. We reminded God of His word to us and we prayed for a different outcome. We prayed for that horse to be healed.
Seems silly doesn't it? Praying for a horse? Doesn't God have something better to do than to listen to His people pray for a horse? Isn't there something better these people could be praying for? Well you might be right but what you don't know is that my mother and father-in-law don't just go to these events to win a race. They believe that this is their mission field and have asked the Lord to open doors for them to share Christ at these events. The people in this circle pay a lot more attention if you're winning. The in-laws felt the Lord was honoring their prayers as fellow competitors would stop to talk about the horse and they would tactfully turn the conversation into a soul winning opportunity. Their pretty sneaky like that.
Back to the story. The vet told the in-laws that this horse would probably not make it through the night and asked what procedures they would like to take in the event the medicines weren't working. There was an option for a surgery but in the case of this horse a surgery wouldn't have done much good because of the severity of the condition. They sadly, and with much heart break, told the vet to put the horse down if that's what it came to.
Now remember, we were praying. We prayed that God would heal the horse and that the doctors wouldn't have an explanation for the healing that was going to take place. The next morning the call came. It was the doctor. We gathered around the phone even though we knew we couldn't all hear the news at once. We were hoping to catch a glimpse of the listener's face as they received the news to tell us the outcome. Are you ready? The horse made it! That's right Hollywood made it through the night. The message from the vet was that Hollywood was touch and go through the night. He also said there was a point they thought he was taking a turn for the worst. Something happened though. At the point in which they thought the horse was going to die Hollywood began to climb back to health. The vet specifically said "I have no idea what caused the change." Well, we know what caused the change. We prayed. We prayed the scripture. We agreed out loud. We called upon the name of Jesus.
God 1. Colic 0.
