Coronavirus Prayer
We all know that “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much” (Jms. 5:16). We know that God hears and answers the prayers of His children (Matt. 7:7-11). Even when they are so weak, weary, and without hope that they no longer know how or what to pray for, God still: hears them, helps them, and gives them the strength to bear up and come bursting through their worst of conflicts as more than conquerors in Christ (Rom. 8:24-39).
His purpose is not yet fulfilled.
It obviously goes without saying that many of us are praying daily for a very swift and sudden end to this Coronavirus chaos so that we can get back to life as “usual.” But because we have yet to see many real and positive results from those prayers, we may be tempted to think that God is either not listening like He said He would, or that our prayers as His blood-bought children are not reaching Him for some reason. If you are living in accordance with His word as much as you possibly can and know how, but have grown a bit weary and/or ready to give up praying because of a lack of seeing any real, positive, tangible results over this (or anything else for that matter), then understand this: Whenever you are seeing no positive results in response to your prayers, it does not mean that God is not listening; it simply means that God’s purposes have not yet been accomplished.
Do you remember the souls of the saints, slain for their faithfulness, who cried out from under the altar, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth” in Revelation 6:9-10? God’s answer?It was going to be “a little while longer,” because all He wanted was not yet “completed” (vs. 11). What about the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10? He repeatedly prayed that his “thorn in the flesh” would be removed. God apparently heard His prayer because He responded to it. But He did not remove Paul’s thorn because He had something far better in mind for him at the time.
Finally, there is Jesus – the perfect, sinless, flawless Son of the living God. He also prayed fervently and repeatedly that God might find another way for Him other than the cross (Matt. 26:36-44). We know without a doubt that God heard His prayers -according to Scripture (Heb. 5:7-8). But we also know that no matter how difficult the ordeal He would have to endure (Heb. 12:1-3), that God had millions of reasons why He simply could not answer His only begotten Son’s heartfelt prayers “yes” at the time… and you were one of them (Rom. 5:6-11; Gal. 3:26-27).
Aren’t you grateful that our Father in heaven is wise enough, and loving enough, to know when to say ‘No,’ or, ‘You must wait just a little while longer,’ in order to accomplish His purposes, whatever they may be? Then pray on without ceasing brethren – and just trust Him like Jesus did! Do yourself a huge favor: Take a moment right now to read Isaiah 40:26-31 and see just how true these things are! God bless!