Don't let your praying go down a sinkhole

This year I have taken a lot of time to pray. I found myself asking the question we all ask, WHY? Why this? Why that? And I was asking, why is it that people pray and don't get an answer? Last year I read an unusual story in the newspaper: A family went to bed in their house at night, with their car outside on the drive. In the night the ground opened up, the car was swallowed, and in the morning they found the car 10 metres down at the bottom of the sinkhole! God used this story and said to me, "I'll tell you what's wrong when you pray. You start praying, and I'm over here waiting to answer. But instead of praying your way through, you stop in the middle, and the ground swallows you up! You stop praying just when I'm about to give you what you ask!!" We pray and we pray, and then we say, "Oh God isn't going to answer!" – And then we give up! And drop down the sinkhole! But God is there, waiting to give the answer and we've given up!

How have I learned how to pray? – Through trial, through tribulation! When I was just a young pastor, a man in my church was dying of terminal cancer. We prayed and God raised him, totally healed him, I saw the cancer coming out of his body! This wasn't healing – they had cut out parts of his body; God remade him! I was just a young man. When the son saw the power of God in his dad, God filled that boy with the Holy Ghost and he went on to preach the Gospel! That's the power of God – He changes men!

But what changed MY life a few years later was when I had throat cancer. I was a pastor and evangelist, but now I couldn't preach! I refused treatment, saying I believe in a God who answers prayer. I prayed three months, believed I was healed, so went back to the doctors. They said, "There is no God, there is no miracle, your cancer has become so big, on Monday we will operate and remove your voice." Did I say to myself, God doesn't answer prayer, God can't remove this, can't work miracles...? What kind of a God do YOU have?! Is He powerless? Or is He the greatest God in the whole world? MY God is the God of the Bible, powerful, glorious and who works miracles! There's no God like Jehovah! But I wasn't healed!! What did I do? I said, "Oh God, teach me how to pray!" I was a preacher, and evangelist, I had seen miracles of healing! Now I was on my face before God, "Oh God, is something wrong with me? – There’s nothing wrong with You Lord, it must be me! – Oh God, heal me!" Still nothing happened. Then I changed my prayer, saying "Oh God, if You want me to remain in my church, live in England – don't heal me! But I believe You are a God of power and authority, who can change the world! If You want me to leave my church, step out in faith, go to Russia, then I need a powerful miracle – HEAL ME!" That night God healed me! Next morning I went to the hospital, the surgeons examined me roughly, three times. And they were angry with me and accused me, "Who did it? What hospital, which doctor? We can see the scar where they cut the cancer out with a knife!" But I said, "His Name is Jesus! He can do what you can’t do!" But now I had made vows to God, so I went to my church and told them, "The good news is that God has healed me. The bad news is, goodbye..." I had made God a promise! How can we expect God to keep His promises, if we can’t keep ours? I stepped out in faith, and with no salary, no money, I bought a piece of land, built myself a new house – with no money – my own staff don't understand how I do this, nothing's changed in all the years – and I bought a brand new tour bus for the Bible smuggling – which cost two times the price of the house! Why? Because if God could work that miracle and heal me – now I had learned something – then nothing is impossible! Absolutely nothing! 

Blessed and Broken

Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what I whisper in your ear, shout from the housetops for all to hear! (Mathew 10:27)

There are times when God puts us through an experience of darkness to teach us to hear and obey His voice. When we are in the dark our senses are heightened, we hear sounds and detect movements that otherwise would be non-existent in the light. In the dark our deepest fears prey on our minds, we become vulnerable to the slightest movement, our imaginations run wild. Yet the darkness is a deliberate act of God, it is His divine will, for it is only in the dark that He teaches us the greatest lessons. Contained within darkness are treasures and secret riches (Is 45:3), but they can only be learnt in silence and stillness. There is hope in realising that before Jesus broke the bread He blessed it, for it is only in the breaking that multiplication took place. The bread was not blessed after it was broken and torn, but the blessing was in the tearing (Matthew 14:19).

When you are in darkness wait until God brings the light; never try and help Him bring better times, for they will surely come at the appointed time. Even in Genesis 1:1 after God had created the heavens and the earth, darkness covered the deep; but yet in this void and desolation the Spirit was hovering, waiting for the next instruction.

Oswald Chambers said of dark times: 'Pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood - darkness is the time to listen. Don't talk to other people about it; don't read books to find out the reason for the darkness; just listen and obey. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. This is a time of discipline and instruction not displeasure.'

A glorious future

Call upon Jesus! When you are in distress, when you are in trouble, when all the problems of life have come upon you, you will find God if you search for Him from just where you are. Today, God has given you a solemn promise of a glorious future. I want you to let these words sink into your spirit this year: God has a bright future for you, He is bringing you out into abundance. An abundance of health, joy, peace: He will give you an abundance of every good thing. You've been through the fire now it's time to enjoy the blessing (Ps 66:12).

I know many reading this have secret problems you cannot share. They are too deep, too hurtful, you cannot open up. Just tell everything to Jesus. It's the only way to be healed, delivered, set free. Talk to Him. He's listening. He loves you – He'll answer. You are not forgotten or insignificant, to Him you are precious and valuable. Reach out to Him right now, just call His Name, 'Jesus'.

Will you come home to your Father's love? If you want this new life, if you will receive Him, I want to pray with you: 'Oh God, become a Father to those reading this, comfort and deliver them. Give them a new hope and a bright future in Jesus' Name.'

Does God care?

We all at times ask: 'Does God care? Does God understand?' I want in some way to encourage you. God sent His Son to live as we do, to experience what we experience. He doesn't sit in heaven aloof to our concerns and fears; He experienced them Himself, that is why Jesus had to come. It was the only way He could identify with our humanity.

Jesus is Son of God yet Son of Man. God allowed Him to suffer. He was rejected and despised. Isaiah said of Jesus that He would be a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Jesus was not born in a palace with all the advantages of wealth and privilege, He was born in a filthy animal stable. He never owned a house. He wore borrowed clothes. When He was killed, He was buried in a borrowed tomb. He had no salary, no pension, no state support.

Jesus needed to suffer so that God could identify with us, so that He could understand and feel our pain. Hebrews 4:15 teaches that Jesus is able to sympathise with our weaknesses because He Himself was tempted and tried as we are, yet He was without sin. That is why we can boldly come before God to find mercy and help in our times of need.

The cross enabled Jesus to identify with us, and for us to identify with Him. Through Jesus we can understand that sometimes suffering leads us to God. The Apostle Paul encourages in 2 Corinthians 7:10, 'For God sometimes uses sorrow in our lives to help us turn away from sin and seek eternal life' (LB).