It was a cold December day six years ago. I was a college freshman trying to earn some money by working as a part time nanny. My charge was a five-year-old girl who tended to drive my 19-year-old self crazy. I don’t have a lot of detailed memories from those months with her, but one memory stands out very clearly.
We were playing some sort of five-year-old game when we heard fire trucks pass by her house with their sirens blaring. That sweet girl immediately stopped what she was doing and said that we should pray for the firemen and the people whose house was on fire. She got down on her knees and began praying. Humbled, I got down beside her and we prayed. I remember my eyes burning with tears as this child spoke her urgent prayer to a God that she had no doubt would listen and answer.
That memory is crystal clear. Frozen in my mind. Yet, I don’t think I have thought about it in years. Until today.
Let me back up a day first to give some context..
Yesterday in Sunday School we were talking about peace, and specifically peace as it relates to conflict overseas. I was convicted as we talked about praying for peace, praying for terrorists, praying for national leaders. I sat there, embarrassed that I couldn’t remember when I had last prayed for peace in Israel or for the members of Isis to surrender their lives to Christ.
It’s not like the concept is new to me. I just haven’t been doing it. Frankly, I haven’t even been keeping up with the news, because it’s one depressing, horrifying, or sad story after another. The problems seem so huge, completely out of my ability to control. But… I can do something. Something big. I can pray.
After Sunday School, these thoughts were rolling around in my head. It was as if a match had been lit, but the fire hadn’t really taken hold yet.
Then last night, as I lay in bed absentmindedly looking at quotes on Pinterest, the fire ignited. The simple quote from Dave Willis said, “If God answered all of your prayers, would the world look different or just your life?”
Stop. Slow down. Read that again. “If God answered all of your prayers, would the world look different or just your life?”
Ouch.
If I say that I believe in a God who answers prayer, than why have I been so lazy about praying for the world around me? Why am I not far more burdened when I see the news or hear reports of lives being turned upside down? It’s easy to pray for those that I know. It’s easy to pray for things that are close to me. But that’s not enough.
If we are called to have the heart of Christ, then the passion in our hearts should be that no one dies without knowing Jesus as Savior. No one. There is no lost cause in Jesus’ eyes. There is no one too far gone. No one.
As I lay there last night, convicted to my core, I knew that something drastically needed to change. I fell asleep praying for people I will never meet, and places I will never go. I woke up doing the same.
We have access to the God of the universe. It is so easy to become numb to this mind blowing, earth shattering fact!! God actually hears our prayers. Every single prayer. Why aren’t we tapping into this ultimate power source on behalf of a world that desperately needs peace? Peace that God longs to give.
As I drove home tonight, I saw an ambulance in front of an assisted living center. I began to pray for anyone and everyone involved. In that instant, my mind took me back to that child’s bedroom six years ago, on my knees next to a child with such great faith that I was put to shame.
I need faith like that child. We need that same passion that drops everything in order to pray when someone is in need. God, give me that passion. Give us faith like that child.