Why I'll Keep Praying for Them

I was drunk driving. Again. It was a can’t see straight, almost blacked out, barely conscious, can’t even hold my cigarette between my fingers kind of drunk. Even more insane was the driving down the dark country roads in a white-out blizzard with no street lights and no way to see the lines on the road.

In that entire year of my life, almost all I can remember are little snapshots, blurred and dark images of the crazy places alcoholism will take you, incoherent like someone channel surfing. Small moments of clarity would surface. They were always spiritual. I always remembered them.

I have no idea where I was going that night or where I had been. One thing I do remember is simply thinking…Hello God? Why don’t you stop this? Something has to, because I’m obviously not going to stop myself. Where are the cops? Why haven’t they pulled me over yet? Stop me, throw me jail, slap me with fines, give me consequences, make it ugly, give me the padded walls if you have to – just make me stop because I can’t. I’m going to wake up somewhere tomorrow morning, I’m going to be shaking and sick, and I’m just going to keep getting this drunk over and over again….I wished for the flashing lights in my rearview mirror, but they never came.

Not too long after that, however, that prayer did get answered. No I never got thrown in jail, even though I should have. But I did, finally, experience enough pain to beat me into a state of submissiveness. While I liked the idea of God speaking LOUDLY to me, it wasn’t like that. He just let me get sick enough to hear him softly inviting me into his healing presence.

Most of us have one million thoughts of possible what if’s, of how this or that could have turned out differently. My skin sometimes crawls when I think about how many times things could have gone horribly, horribly wrong for me. I could have crashed my car and killed someone else, I could have been robbed and left for dead, I could have ended up in jail, I could have overdosed.

So yes I find gratitude in what didn’t happen to me. I escaped much pain that a lot of people don’t escape. I don’t know why, but I absolutely believe that God has plans for me, and that I am living some of them right now.

More importantly, I believe in the power of prayer. There is no way to know what direction my life would have taken without the love of God as it manifested itself in people who loved me by praying for me.

My grandmas, my parents, my sister and her husband. But as I have grown into a church family of my own, I realize there must have been many, many more. Surely my sister asked some of the women in her small group from her church to pray for me, who in turn carried me in their heart. I suspect my brother-in-law’s parents were part of this prayer chain. I know my parents lost sleep praying for my safety and restoration to sanity.

So today I get to stand joyfully as a walking, talking, proclaiming reminder that prayer is not in vain! Though it sometimes seems that all around us people are dropping like flies from every kind of rebellion against God, I am here to tell you that people DO change. The Spirit of God still draws his children to himself, and the blood of Jesus still transforms lives. I ran, but God pursued. I am one of millions of Prodigal Children. And other people with a heart for Christ prayed for mercy on my behalf, praying me across my stormy seas and onto the shore of safety.

Is there someone in your life who is far from God, and is your heart aching for them? I have a growing list. But there have also come the sweet times of crossing some names off of that list!

God does not always answer prayer in the way we expect, but if we are praying for his people to repent and turn to him, then surely we believe that God wants this too!

“I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:10)

Do not lose hope. We only have to look as far as our Bible to know that sinners worse than the ones we know have come to know the goodness of the Lord.

Dear Lord, thank you for stirring hearts to pray for my miserable self when I needed it the most. Help us when we are discouraged to always remember that you purchased our salvation on the Cross, and that your touch on the lives of sinners can transform the worst of us.