Earnest, Urgent Prayers

Earnest, Urgent Prayers

While Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly for him. Acts 12:5

A PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS BROKE OUT under Herod Agrippa’s rule about a decade after Jesus’ crucifixion, and James the apostle was executed. When the king saw his approval rating rise with James’s death, he went a step further and imprisoned Peter. The entire church of Jerusalem felt threatened, of course, and dedicated themselves to prayer. Peter’s life, along with their entire movement, seemed to be in danger as soon as Passover ended. They prayed “very earnestly” for God to intervene.

God did intervene, and a humorous story emerged from one of the New Testament’s darkest crises. An angel woke Peter up, loosed his chains, and led him out into the streets, where he eventually realized his deliverance was much more than a vision. He went to the home where believers were gathered to pray, and the servant girl was so astonished to see him that she left him at the door to run to tell the others. They, too, were astonished and assumed she had seen Peter’s angel, not Peter himself. They had been so desperately praying for his deliverance that they could only picture him in prison, not free in answer to their prayers. The effects of their own faith startled them.

Don’t be surprised by answers to your earnest, urgent prayers. It’s completely natural to pray for a desperate situation with the problem seeming much more likely than the solution, but we don’t pray natural prayers. They are supernatural, and the God who sits above all earthly situations is listening to the petitions of his people. He may not always answer as we expect—Peter lived in this story, but James died tragically—but he does respond. The fervent prayers of his people matter to him very much.

Cultivate anticipation in your prayers to the point that you can see the answer without being astonished. Learn to expect the unexpected. Pray with the bold assumption that God is listening favorably and working out his purposes through the words you are praying. Envision all of heaven reacting to the petitions of believers on earth. The faith you have in your spirit profoundly affects the situations you will see with your eyes.

The angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it was prayer that fetched the angel.