Healing Rays of Righteousness

From my childhood years, I remember this motto, beautifully painted, hanging on the wall in our house. And during the many years since then, I have learned just how true, important, and marvelous this gift has been and is in my life.

Yes, I said “gift.” I have learned that prayer is one of God’s majestic gifts to us humans, a gift of gracious privilege, and a gift of tremendous value in daily enabling us through life’s uncertain and often difficult journey.

To be privileged to come into the presence of God Almighty and to speak with Him about whatever is on our hearts and minds is a gift of grace. To be privileged to come into the presence of Almighty God as his children, and to speak with him as “Our Father” is a privilege of unimaginable worth.

And yet, we tend to frequently take “prayer” for granted and fail to appreciate its value to us. We glibly “say a prayer” at mealtimes and begin meetings or special events with a prayer; most often being more motivated by tradition than by a sincere, genuine desire for God’s presence and power in our midst.

The value of prayer was really magnified to me one night while serving as Hospice chaplain at Paoli Memorial Hospital. A woman’s husband was in the final hours of dying, and both had previously requested that I not pray in their presence because they were agnostic with no church affiliation. And yet, on this night, she requested the nurse to phone me at 3:00 in the early morning, asking that I come to the hospital to be with her. Why?

I never felt so helpless and useless. I knew that audible prayer was not valued by her and thus not appropriate. They had no children and very few friends. I remember agonizing, how sad, how lonely it must feel to not value prayer in such times of loss. I wanted to assure her that God was present and loving her. I wanted to audibly pray with and for her, but I was not permitted to do so. All I could offer her was my human presence. And with little conversation I waited with her until her husband died several hours later, for which she thanked me.

In Mark 9:14-29, we read that it was late morning when Jesus, with his three disciples, came down from the high mountain where the three disciples had witnessed Jesus being gloriously transfigured. But now, at the foot of the mountain, there was a crowd of excited people, and amid the crowd stood the other disciples, humiliated by their failure to cast out the evil spirit that possessed an epileptic child.

After Jesus had healed the boy and the crowd left, his disciples asked him, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”  In Jesus’ reply we hear one of the deepest mysteries of the Christian life. “This kind can come out only by prayer.” (Mark 9:28-29). Thus, Jesus proclaimed that prayer is a force in the universe, a super-natural force, that God’s people are privileged to tap into.

We tend to forget that our God is “all-knowing” and knows the opportunities and hazards of the future like the back of his hand. He is also “all-powerful” and able to steer and energize us with his spirit through the shadowy and uncertain events of life.

Yes, in praying, we bring God into our life and work, making us more conscious of his presence. And that awareness fills us with God’s enabling power in decision-making, conversation, and doing. Praying connects us to the wisdom, power, and energy of God.

Yes, it is the privilege of every child of God to ask for and receive the super-natural power and energy of God in their life and work. I am convinced of this truth because I have often witnessed and experienced its enabling power and healing balm in so many different circumstances.

Yes, Prayer Changes Things and Me. Prayer has been and is the strength undergirding my ministry as a pastor and chaplain. Prayer has been and is my one and only remedy for the healing of a person’s body, mind, and spirit. Without the gift of prayer, I would have nothing to offer those in distress – the sick and dying person, the bereaved family, and their friends, the fearful, the troubled in spirit, and others. For that reason, I daily thank the Lord, for his gracious gift of prayer.

William Temple is quoted as saying, “When I pray coincidences happen, and when I do not pray, they don’t.”  Mother Teresa said, “Prayer enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God’s gift of Himself.”  And Leonard Ravenhill wrote, “The self-sufficient do not pray, the self-satisfied will not pray, and the self-righteous cannot pray.”

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Ray M. Geigley – “Healing Rays of Righteousness” – www.geigler13.wordpress.com – 9/11/24