Words of Life: An Enduring Legacyনমুনা

Prayer is invading the impossible.

‘The world just seems to be going mad,’ said my wife as we watched the TV news. Two headlines about war zones: a democracy being suspended and martial law introduced; devastated parents whose babies had been murdered in a hospital; the collapse of a once-stable government. All matters over which we had no control and which seemed beyond our influence. Add to those global issues all the personal challenges around us – unexpected illness, mental health difficulties, debt, redundancy, financial insecurity, family conflicts, plus a myriad other things – and it becomes easy to feel that everything is out of control.

It is for this very reason that we, as disciples of Jesus, pray. Prayer is the medium by which God’s people step into the impossible and call on God for intervention and help. While Jeremiah was seeking the Lord for the seemingly helpless situation that his people found themselves in, the Lord confronted him with the verse above. Is anything too hard for the Lord?

Jack Hayford, a Pentecostal minister and composer of the worship song ‘Majesty’, also authored a book entitled Prayer is Invading the Impossible. This will be our central theme as we look again at the discipline and blessing of prayer. When we pray, we hand over to God the things beyond our ability to change, and ask for him to do what only he can do.

James 4:2 (NIV) confronts us with the words: ‘You do not have because you do not ask God.’ As we commence this study, let us resolve to use the tools given to us by God and utilise prayer to make the impossible possible. As God’s people, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by re-energising our life of prayer.

What hard things should I hand over to the Lord today?