Recently, my father has been having some heart/blood pressure issues. Of course, I immediately freak out inside...and my mind begins to wander into territories it shouldn't go. My mind does the same thing when I don't feel little miss sunshine moving around inside of me.
It's easy to say a thing and to think a thing...even believe a thing, but experiencing and living a thing goes far beyond mere words and ideas. It's so easy to say "yes, Lord" with our mouths, go on living our everyday "normal" lives, and then expect God to do big things for us. He wants more. He demands more. He requires more. As I've said before, God is not Santa Claus. He is not Genie from Aladdin. Our wish is not His command...and we all know that even when our prayers are "answered", it's always in God's timing and not our own.
I have always loved the verse from James 5 that says, "...The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much."
The Message puts it this way:
James 5:16-18 "Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with. Elijah, for instance, human just like us, prayed hard that it wouldn’t rain, and it didn’t—not a drop for three and a half years. Then he prayed that it would rain, and it did. The showers came and everything started growing again."
According to the Webster's dictionary, the word avails means to produce or result in as a benefit or advantage. In other words, it means to gain.
The scripture makes it very clear that this "gain" only occurs when effort is put forth. There is a requirement. Not just for prayer of "a thing", but also there needs to be the heart of a righteous man.
Many times throughout my life {for those of you who know me, you may know and understand the circumstances I'm talking about}, I've had to overcome many obstacles {we all have}. Some big, some trivial. Some worked out and some, especially the ones that I longed for the most, did not. However, through it all, it never meant that God did not love me or did not care that my prayers were not answered. And though it's taken time and more years than you could shake a stick at, He reminds me that He still has a plan...a plan that He will finish.
Hebrews 11:6 "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." (NIV)