What If?

 

Back in the early 1980s, a doctor at a remote medical clinic in Angola sent a co-worker on an errand to a city some miles away.  The doctor warned him to return by nightfall.  Angola had been recently taken over by Marxist forces. The road between the clinic and the city stretched through a jungle area where guerrilla resistance fighters violently opposed the new regime, causing it to be particularly dangerous to travel at night.

The co-worker quickly completed his business in the city.  As he began his return back to the clinic, his van developed engine trouble and broke down right in the middle of the volatile jungle area.  With no other traffic on that stretch of road at that time of day, he had no choice but to lock the doors, pray, and try to get some sleep, not knowing what awaited him in the night.

Strangely, he slept through until morning, caught a ride into town for spare parts, fixed the van, and completed his trip.  The doctor was surprised and grateful for his safe return, telling him, “We heard sounds of heavy fighting from the area you were in.”  The assistant said that he had not heard nor seen anything of the sort.

Later that day, a guerilla officer came to the clinic, seeking medical care.  The doctor asked him if he had seen a stalled van on the road the previous night.  “Yes, of course,” replied the officer. “When we got closer, we saw that it was heavily guarded.  There were 27 well-armed government soldiers surrounding it.”

The incident remained a mystery until the assistant returned to the United States on furlough, where numerous people on his prayer team, one by one, approached him and said that the Lord had given them a special burden to pray for him on a particular day.  Exactly 27 people had been nudged to pray on the very day he had been stranded in the jungle. 

I first read this story forty years ago, when it was included in a letter written by a young friend who was serving with an organization in Africa. 

What really happened in this story?  While amazing, the most powerful part was not the man’s protection in a dangerous situation, but that twenty-seven people were faithful.  When God nudged them, they were urgent to pray.  And perhaps, even beyond that situation, many hundreds of others saw that praying does matter. 

One man’s life was spared.  Many, many others learned to pray.

We don’t always even know what to pray for, or how to pray, the outcome always in God’s hands anyway.  But God invites us into His work and wonder as an active participant in His glory.  Would we even recognize God’s presence or acknowledge Him, if we did not pray?  Even in the unexpected, even when we don’t understand what God did and is still doing, praying may not change circumstances, but God always re-orders our hearts and tweaks our vision right in the midst of it.

We cannot remain the same.

Even one act of praying strengthens us for being aware of the next opportunity.  Not as an expression of our own power, but His.  As Joseph answered Pharoah, “It is not in me, but God…” Genesis 41.16

This incident in Africa, so very far away, so many decades ago, still reverberates in lives.  We are touched by those who were faithful before us.  Praying is never restricted to an isolated incident, nor limited to a short story, but echoes across eternity.  God knits us to each other.  God knits us to Himself.

What do we need to pray about today?  What situation?  Who does God bring to mind?  What if we prayed?

Even when we think there is nothing we can do, we can pray.  And God rocks this world because of that.  Someone, somewhere is affected radically by it.  Even ourselves.

God does great things we cannot comprehend.  Job 37. 5