When someone says, “I’m praying for you”, what do you actually expect to happen?
Acts 12:5 So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.
Peter needed support from his friends, but he was separated from them. Strict social distancing was enforced by iron gates, prison walls, soldiers, and chains. There was nothing the believers could do to connect with Peter to offer encouragement or help him out of his situation. But they could pray. In answer to their prayer, God did for Peter what his friend could not do.
The changes in our world due to COVID-19 have introduced some unique barriers to connecting with others. But where interpersonal ministry may be limited, intercessory prayer is not. Praying for others is connecting with others.
Intercessory Prayer Field Tested
In 1906, 20-year-old James Fraser was studying Engineering at Imperial College in London when God convicted his heart to work as a foreign missionary. He joined China Inland Mission and arrived in Hong Kong in 1908. After a year of language study, he was sent to the rural Yunnan Province in the Himalayas of Southwest China. He labored for 6 years without a single convert. The work did not appear to be moving forward but Fraser was moving forward on his knees. He wrote to his supports back home, “I am not asking you just to give “help” in prayer as a sort of sideline, but I am trying to roll the main responsibility of this prayer warfare on you. I want you to take the burden of these people upon your shoulders. I want you to wrestle with God for them.”
Prayer broke through. After 6 years with no converts Fraser saw 100 families among the Lisu people come to faith in Jesus in a span of 4 months.
Intercessory Prayer Field Tested Again
Fraser saw prayer bring the Lisu people to faith but then he had to trust that prayer would keep them in the faith. During winter months, travel was difficult in the highlands. And that’s where many of the new converts lived. Even if it were possible to reach the villages it would take a enormous amount of time and energy. They didn’t have access to Zoom or even a postal system. If Fraser couldn’t get to them, he couldn’t disciple them. He feared that they might turn back to their traditional practice of worshipping their ancestors.
Prayerfully, Fraser decided to spend the winter months gathering with the new believers in the lowlands and praying for the new believers in the highlands. The full amount of time he would have spent traveling and working with them he spent praying for them. Can you imagined how Fraser must have felt as he hiked up the trail the following spring to see if there was anyone up in the highlands who still believed? He found believers. The converts he had prayed for in the highlands had experienced more spiritual growth than the ones he worked for in the lowlands.
It was experiences like these that led Fraser bold conclusions about intercessory prayer and see in the following quotations:
“The church of Protestant countries is well able to nourish the infant church of the Orient by a steady and powerful volume of intercessory prayer.”
“I used to think that prayer should have the first place and teaching the second. I now feel that it would be truer to give prayer the first, second and third place, and teaching the fourth.”
“Solid, lasting missionary work is done on our knees.”
And history has proved his prayer work to be solid and lasting. Over 100 years later there are over 300,000 Christians among the Lisu people.
What should we make of stories like this?
Praying for others is connecting with others!
We are experiencing our own kind of winter in the highlands. There are real barriers that make it a challenge to connect with others. Prayer is relational. Prayer is not confined by quarantine, it is not weakened by distance, it cannot be shut down by a mandate. We can help others move forward when we get on our knees.
Prayer connects us despite our helplessness!
Acts 12:1-3 About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James the brother of John with the sword, and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also.
The other guy got killed. Peter was fortunate to have only been arrested. But he was not feeling too good about the potential outcome. If you’re feeling like prayer could not connect in your situation because you are too helpless, consider Peter in that prison cell.
There are many helpless situations in the Bible followed by the word “but”.
- Ephesians 2:3-4 We were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us…
- Luke 22:31-32 Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you…
- Acts 12:5 So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.
The Peter in prison part is not so hopeless because of the earnest prayer part.
This escape does not happen because of the ability of Peter or his friends. They were helpless!
The security was too tight for them!
Acts 12:6 Now when Herod was about to bring him out, on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries before the door were guarding the prison.
Peter needed help getting dressed!
Acts 12:8 And the angel said to him, “Dress yourself and put on your sandals.”
I am not sure what the dress code was in that prison, but Peter doesn’t get credit for the escape if he needs angel to tell him to put his clothes on.
The gate opened on its own!
Acts 12:10 When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel left him.
Peter’s friends weren’t out there prying the iron gate open, or sneaking past the guards, or smacking him awake, or loosing his chains, or lighting up his cell, or helping him get dressed or leading him out. They couldn’t do all that but prayer did.
They didn’t even open the door!
Acts 12:15 Recognizing Peter’s voice, in her joy she did not open the gate but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate.
As a final reminder that this did not happen by their strength of wisdom, the believers don’t even open the door for Peter. It’s a good thing the angel helped him get his clothes on because he had to stand outside for a while. This escape was not accomplished by saintly heroics but by earnest prayer.
Have you felt helpless in your ability to connect with others? You haven’t been able to support in the way you would like to, it’s been a year since you have seen their face, you can’t visit, you can’t travel, you can’t connect… but you can pray. And praying for other is connecting with others.
Prayer connects us with help from heaven!
Acts 12:7 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell.
There were soldiers, and chains and doors and guards and… an angel standing next to him.
You might be feeling the chains and seeing the guards but don’t overlook the angel. There are helpers from heaven with you in your helplessness.
When you go in for treatment, there is an angel standing next to you.
When you are nervous about that difficult conversation there is an angel standing next to you.
When you are failing as a parent and you have no idea what to do, there is an angel standing next to you.
When you cannot resist the addiction that you know is destroying you, there is an angel standing next to you.
When you cannot see out of the depression, there is an angel standing next to you.
Yes, there are chains. Yes, there are guards. But there is also an angel! Don’t focus on the chains. Focus on the one sent from heaven who is standing next to you.
Heaven’s help next to us makes it ok for us to be helpless.
And this angel was spunky. It says there was a light that shone in the cell. Oh, it sounds so angelic. At that moment you might expect the angel to start singing in Latin or reciting scripture from the King James Version in a rich British accent. Nope! That’s not what happens next. Notice what the spunky angel does.
Acts 2:7 He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his hands.
The angel hits Peter!
Some of us just need to get whacked by an angel. We need to wake up to the ways God is helping us. We need to get up and see our chain fall off.
Prayer connects us in a real way!
Acts 12:9 And he went out and followed him. He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision.
This is how many of us perceive the work of prayer. We do it but were are not actually sure if it is real. When someone says, “I’m praying for your”, and actually does it, those are not just kind words. They are not just symbolic of how much they care. Something real and powerful happens in intercessory prayer. It accomplishes things that our best efforts cannot. Prayer is ministry! Prayer is encouragement! Prayer invites real change! You might not be able to reach out and touch them, but God can embrace them while you prayer.
Prayer connects despite our ignorance!
We don’t have to know what is going on in order for prayer to be effective. Prayer connects when we don’t see it, when we don’t get it, when we don’t feel it! God’s work does not depend on us understanding it.
Acts 12:11 When Peter came to himself, he said, “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.”
God wasn’t waiting for Peter to understand in order to work the miracle. Peter “came to himself” after the miracle already happened.
Acts 12:15 They said to her, “You are out of your mind.” But she kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying, “It is his angel!”
Their prayer had been answered in a miraculous way, and they were total unaware. The answer to their prayer was literally knocking on the door and they were unaware that anything had happened Let it sink in, some of the people you are praying for right now have already experienced the miracle you are praying for, you just don’t know it yet!
Praying for others is connecting with others.
A Low Tolerance for Disconnection
With the availability of connection, we ought to have a low tolerance for disconnection.
After our 1st baby was born and my wife was pregnant with our second, my parents bought us a video camera. That was before we had smart phones with quality cameras. It was well used. Until my dog chewed the charger cord.
I was frustrated, and I was also cheap. I refused to buy a new one, it would have cost me $14 (Yeah, I looked it up on Amazon and I still remember the price. The free shipping was tempting but let’s not be extravagant now!). Instead, I responded to the loss with creativity and persistence. I stripped the rubber coating off the wires and twisted them together. And that worked for a while, until it didn’t anymore. Then I figured out that I could tape them at just the right angle to get connection. But it was inconsistent and took a lot of patience. And the camera was used less and less, until the charger was beyond repair and the camera sat on the shelf for the next 9 years.
When we don’t connect, we die. Instead of moving forward on our knees we get stuck on a spiritual shelf. We try spiritual cheap fixes. We strip wires and try to twist them together. Eventually, it just gets too hard to connect and we give up.
In those 9 years the camera sat on the shelf, my babies grew up. I have thousands of pictures of the first year of my first daughter’s life. My 3rd daughter was an adorable baby as well, but I do not have so many pictures of her. But you see, I couldn’t really help it, the dog ate the cord. What was I supposed to do? Spend $14?
Yeah, our reasons for not connecting are weak. Looking back, we feel silly that we ever let them stop us from connecting. Sure, you were offended at church. You were wronged. Nobody reached out when you needed encouragement. Others didn’t think just like you. Your life has been hard. We have reasons! But no matter our reason, does it justify our disconnection? When the Almighty God invites us to live in connection with Him and to enjoy a supernatural connection with His people our $14 reasons are exposed!
I finally admitted to myself that I was not going to be using the camera anymore. So, I gave it to my girls to use as a toy. My oldest daughter pulled a USB chord out of the camera that I had never noticed. She then asked what would happen if we just connected the cord to the computer. She connected it and the camera began charging. Turns out, connection was available that whole time. After all the stripping, twisting, and taping and 9 years of disuse the camera is now connected, and it lives again.
When we allow barriers to keep us from connecting, the Lisu highlanders have no spiritual support, Peter is stuck in prison, the video camara gets put on the shelf and we stop moving forward on our knees. No matter how long you have tolerated disconnection with God or others, connect today and live again!