Once again, my husband and I have witnessed the remarkable power of prayer. Corporate prayer. Family, friends, acquaintances, friends of friends, complete strangers (brothers and sisters in Christ we never knew we had!) —all rallied together with us this week to pray for our granddaughter’s major heart surgery. It was as though God’s guiding and protective hand was over every move the vascular and thoracic surgeons made, and every detail in this first phase of her recovery. All because people took the time to petition God on behalf of someone else.
Not only is prayer our means of intimate, around-the-clock communication and interaction with God, our lifeline in times of trouble, and a powerful weapon in our warfare—it connects the body of Christ. “We are family”, as one friend put it. For because of Him the whole body (the church, in all its various parts), closely joined and firmly knit together by the joints and ligaments with which it is supplied, when each part [with power adapted to its need] is working properly [in all its functions], grows to full maturity, building itself up in love (Ephesians 4:16). I can’t say I fully understand this verse, or the function or identity of these joints and ligaments that knit us together, but my guess is that our granddaughter, our family, received an inside peek at how it works. And it was beautiful.
Just think. In this sickly and fragmented, painful world, prayer is our living, breathing, heart-to-heart, spirit-to-spirit pipeline to each other. It is guaranteed ‘Covid’-proof, hate-resistant, devil-retardant, far-reaching, heavy-duty. It's the super-adhesive conduit through which God’s love and Holy Spirit power freely flows.
Okay, so I’m gushing! But with good cause. Not only is our granddaughter on the mend, our family has been thoroughly loved on, cared for, protected because people took time out of their busy day to pray. It can't get much better than that.