Rev. Ray and Pat Amos

Praying Large

Abraham was standing on a hill nearby in a serious conversation with the Lord. Judgment was coming to Sodom; and an old man was pleading for others. After all, he had family in that city. That man of God had reached up a hand in prayer and took hold of the thunderbolt of judgment that was flying toward that city, and held it through the day while he plead with God to take it back.

When I was in the Air Force, our planes were heavy and needed extra thrust to get them airborne. There are times when the one who prays is burdened down with heaviness, and he/she too needs extra thrust to get that prayer in the sky. We especially need it now. Sometime I feel that I have become anemic in prayer. “Lord, give me courage, largeness, and richness toward God; or else I will pray small.”

Attitudes also have to change if Christians are going to be powerful intercessors in this world. When James and John wanted to call down fire on people with whom they disagreed; Jesus said, “You don’t even know who you are. I did not come to destroy lives but to save them.” (Luke 9:55-56)

Sometimes our Christianity can become very unchristian. It can sound like we would enjoy it if God would bring down fire on certain people. (Be careful, someone may be hoping for a little fire to fall on us.) God give us the spirit of Abraham in this text. Then, perhaps we will realize that we all share life on this earth together.

The kind of intercessory prayer that is powerful is not our ability to present a great argument to God. It is in the fact that we care enough to pray long and hard for the brokenness of a people that God truly loves. The greater sin in life may be the sin of unmercifully not caring about the thunderbolt as long as we think it is pointing toward somebody else.