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By Mervyn Morelock, Lt. Colonel
Who gets the credit for answers to prayer? Why God does, of course!
We have many misconceptions about prayer. If prayer is not for the purpose of moving God to my point of view, what is its aim? If I can’t change God, why should I pray? Who gets the credit when prayers are answered? And who is to blame when they are not?
I have a friend who has been hospitalized for several weeks. He was in a drug-induced coma, near death. The prognosis was not good. But we prayed, and the doctors and nurses worked round the clock, day after day, for his care.
I saw him yesterday. For the first time in weeks, he was able to recognize me. Who gets the credit for a person getting well?
A doctor from Texas has written several books on the effects of prayer on healing.
His interest began when a colleague showed him an x-ray of a man with cancer. He looked at the x-ray and said, “there is no hope for this man; he is full of cancer. All we can do is make him comfortable and treat him for pain until the cancer takes him.” He writes of going by his room from time to time. It was always crowded with people from his church, praying for him.
That doctor transferred out of the hospital and did not know what had happened to the patient. On a return visit, his colleague again showed him an x-ray. It was of that patient. The x-ray was clear. His colleague said, “Isn’t it wonderful what we were able to do for him?” The doctor responded, “Done for him? Why we didn’t do anything for him! The only difference was the prayers of his church!” He was a miracle!
So who gets the credit for healing? Many doctors and nurses acknowledge they can only do so much. God does the miracle of healing.
When lightning strikes
Major Melba Gilden in the “Gilden Family News” recently shared a story about the credit for answered prayer:
“Headline: A Texas beer joint in Mt. Vernon, Texas, sues church over lightning strike!
“Drummond’s Bar began construction on expansion of their building to increase their business. In response, the local Baptist Church started a campaign to block the bar from expanding with petitions and prayers. Work progressed right up until the week before the grand re-opening, when lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground!
“After the bar burned to the ground, the church folks were rather smug in their outlook, bragging about the power of prayer, until the bar owner sued the church on the grounds that the church ‘was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building, either through direct or indirect actions or means.’ In its reply to the court, the church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection to the building’s demise.
“The judge read through the plaintiff’s complaint and the defendant’s reply, and at the opening hearing he commented: ‘I don’t know how I’m going to decide this, but it appears from the paperwork that we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that now does not!’
“[Who was willing to accept credit or blame for the power of prayer?]
“To pray is to let Jesus glorify his name in the midst of our needs. Prayer is simply opening our lives to God, acknowledging our total dependence on him. Prayer is not limited to a segment of our lives or to a scheduled event in our days. It is an attitude of receptivity in which we live every moment. It is being open to him at all times. It is living in the presence of God, always in the process of being reshaped and re-created by him.”
God continues to answers the prayers of his people, because Jesus is alive! There is power, real power in your prayers. And who gets the credit for answered prayer? Why God does—even when sometimes the answer may be, “not yet.”
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