The Power of a Single Prayer
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
Most middle-school children aren’t crazy about praying out loud. Take my youngest. At the end of each day, we pray together briefly, offering thanks and petitions and then usually closing with the Lord’s Prayer.
At times, Luci will ask me to do the praying for her. But I remind her that God hears from me all the time. “He wants to hear your voice too,” I say. I wonder if my daughter’s reticence stems from the fact that she underestimates her influence with God.
Perhaps that’s true for most of us. We don’t realize what a difference one prayer can make. Author Fern Nichols tells of a time in her own life when she felt prompted to pray for her husband, Rle, and her ten-year-old son, Troy, while they were on a canoeing trip with friends in Canada.
Sitting down at the kitchen table, she prayed through passages from her Bible: “Protect them from the evil one” (John 17:15, niv); “‘Because he loves me,’ says the Lord, ‘I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name’” (Psalm 91:14, niv). Because the urge to intercede was so strong, she prayed for about an hour.
That night Fern received a call from her husband telling her that during the afternoon, he and Troy had been struggling for their lives in the icy waters of the Fraser River. Their canoe had capsized, and they had spent nearly an hour in the freezing, raging water until they and their friends were finally rescued by helicopter.
The paramedics told Rle that Troy would have died from hypothermia had he been in the water for just ten more minutes. Fern was startled to learn that they had been struggling at the same time she had been praying.
If you ask whether her prayer made a difference, Fern won’t hesitate to say so. Her story reminds us of how God can work powerfully through one woman who prays. Because Fern paid attention to God’s Spirit, he used her prayers to keep four people safe. Now that’s what I call influence!
Lord, I remember that shalom also means “safety.” Thank you for the way you have kept me safe. Please use my prayers to bring shalom to others