By: Dr. Harold Sala




“Did you say your prayers last night?” a father asked his little girl at breakfast. Candidly she replied, “No, daddy. I didn’t want anything last night.” Well, there is one thing for sure: When your back is to the wall, when trouble is knocking at your door, or a tropical storm is threatening to wipe out your home, you pray. You really pray. None of this business of rubbing your eye brows and mumbling a few words.

But are times of desperation the only times we need to pray?

I often think of asking an airline pilot friend of mine what he thought about when he lost an engine on an Airbus A320. His response was that he didn’t have time to think. He was so engrossed in stabilizing the plane and getting the passengers safely to an airport that he himself went on "automatic pilot." But what stuck in my mind so forcibly was his comment which followed as he said, “That’s why you had better be ready to meet the Lord any time because sometimes you don’t have time to pray.”

“Prayer,” said John R. Rice, “is asking and receiving.” And that is true, but it is much more than this. Question: Why should God answer my prayer, or any one else’s prayer for that matter? In Paul’s letters he tells us that prayer is based upon a relationship, and he uses the analogy of the relationship of a father and a child who has been adopted. As the adopted son, the youngster has a new relationship with his father. He belongs to him, and because of this, the little child asks freely of his father, who delights in bringing happiness to the little boy. You find this truth in Galatians 4 and Romans 8 in the New Testament.

Frankly, I am often reproved by the simple faith of brothers and sisters—often in faraway lands—who ask God quietly to do something, and God honors that request. In our sophistication, we rely upon miracle drugs and medicines, upon MRIs and CAT scans, upon medical technology, not bothering to bring our needs to God’s throne in prayer.

Instead of walking up a dirt trail or road to a prayer mountain where a thatched roof offers some shade as believers pray, we beat a well-worn path to a doctor’s office where we trust medical science. Now, lest I be misunderstood, I’m not opposed to the remarkable help which the medical profession and science and technology have brought to us. But I’m wondering if with our sophistication and progress, we have forgotten the simple truth that God still hears and answers prayer.

On the wall of my godly grandmother’s home was a little plaque which read, “Prayer changes things!” Yes, I know what it meant. But I’ve come to learn that prayer changes people and people change things. Most of our problems are not typhoons or tornadoes or even bacteria or blight, but people problems—the kind medical science cannot change.


I think James was right when he said that we have not because we ask not. Never forget the encouragement which Jesus gave to His disciples as He said, “Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:24, NKJV). Yes, why not ask even now?

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