Prayer is not a last resort

This weekend, I got to hang out again with the other missionaries from my September trip to India. We ate A LOT of (non-Indian) food together and compiled a collection of the ugliest/creepiest/worst photos of everybody from the trip. A photo of me made it into the Top 6..... Thanks guys!

All of this has given me an opportunity to reflect on the lessons I learned from ministering in India. It taught me the importance of prayer. No one was more surprised than I was when my own prayers were answered, and when deaf people began to hear and lame people started to walk.

I had prayed for days and weeks before for a miracle. I needed one because although I believed wholeheartedly that God could heal people, I was starting to doubt that He really wanted to. God answering each of these prayers showed me how powerful prayer really is.

Prayer is not a last resort, the Bible says that prayer can change nations and heal lands. Prayer is a weapon that we can use to wage wars that look impossible in the natural.

I used to do all that I could and then pray about the rest, but ministry in India has taught me a better way. I am confident in the reality of God and of His incredible power, which he does (according to His will and by his grace) use and display in our lives... when we pray.

Last weekend, I heard a young lady speak about her childhood after being given away by her mother at 10 years old. She bounced between foster families and government-run residential units. She started to use drugs and became violent, and was in big trouble with the police. She assaulted people and she robbed people. Her story and her experiences are all too familiar to me in my work in the Childrens' Court. I see kids who have done terrible things, like attacking people when they are walking home late at night and stealing from them. Beneath their offending, I often see boys and girls damaged from neglect and abuse at the hands of their broken families who aren't able to care for them the way they deserve to be cared for.

So it gave me hope when I heard that this young lady, who was addicted to drugs, being abused by her boyfriend, committing robberies and dying of anorexia, gave her life to Jesus Christ at age 16. I meet the 26-year-old version of her now and can't imagine that she could ever have been any of the things she describes from her past. I see a happy young woman, grateful to be alive and made whole by knowing Christ.God has completely transformed her and it wasn't through a specific person who Bible-bashed her... but through a series of God-authored events in her life that drew her to search for Him and find Him.

Her story gives me so much hope for the people I encounter. There is no person too far gone for Jesus to save and there is no person that Jesus did not die to save. I choose to become a lawyer because Jesus spent most of his time on Earth with the broken people and the outcasts, and I see His work most clearly in the people I encounter through my work and in their desperate situations. I feel helpless when I can't personally fix people and make their lives happy and good again (which is most of the time, because I just can't).

But God works in my prayer and God can change anyone's life. Sometimes we are not called to be the rescuer, we are called to be the friend that will love and walk alongside people and support them. And we have this incredible weapon called prayer.

I want to pray more and pray passionately, especially for the people that I meet who are in trouble.

Because India showed me that God listens to my prayers and that He answers them.

With my own eyes, I saw God heal many deaf people and crippled people in answer to a simple prayer. 

I believe God can do anything.

The team having some fun in India (I'm so uncoordinated!)