Praying Like Never Before

Praying Like Never Before

Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.

Ephesians 6:18

As any couple who has experienced a tumultuous pregnancy or a crisis with an infant or child knows, the vulnerability you feel as a parent is almost beyond description. Without the gift of prayer we cannot imagine how we could have sustained our strength.

You see, our son John was born three months ahead of schedule, weighing just a pound and fighting against all odds to survive. And in our moments of crisis with baby John we prayed with hearts on our sleeves. You might be interested to know that our prayers together sometimes felt awkward or uncomfortable—especially when one or both of us may not have felt much like praying. But our deep need for prayer overcame all the resistance and kept us praying our imperfect prayers. There were moments so intense that they literally drove us to our knees.

So many points in our crisis could not have been survived without shared prayer: the day Leslie was wheeled directly from the doctor’s office to the hospital for what was to be the remainder of the pregnancy; the doctor’s announcement that the decision to deliver at 28 weeks was unavoidable; the phone call in the early morning hours summoning us to the hospital for John’s emergency surgery; the dreaded news of a brain bleed, a collapsed lung, a serious eye disease. Each of these moments required a focused strength not possible without God’s presence.

There were also the moments of gratitude so rich that we understood how Christ felt when he said, “If these people don’t praise God, the very rocks will cry out in praise” (see Luke 19:40). It was 11:30 p.m., Sunday evening, February 28, 1998, when John’s postoperative body finally pulled out of severe shock and the monitors fell to safer levels while he lapsed into sleep after five days of terrifying pain and fragility. And July 11, 1998, was the day an intricate eye exam revealed John’s deteriorating eyesight was stabilizing and had actually begun a healing process that would reverse the current damage. The immensity of gratitude that filled our marriage in those moments and the prayers of simple thanksgiving we shared obliterated any remnant of feeling that prayer was a duty for us to perform rather than a power that enables us to live in God’s presence. What do you need to pray together about today? Have you tried and felt strange doing so? Keep trying. Keep praying.

Trouble and perplexity drive me to prayer, and prayer drives away perplexity and trouble.

—Philipp Melanchthon