2 minute read
It Begins and Ends with Prayer
Recently my daughter got married, and during the months of preparation I worried how all the threads that needed to come together—to produce a celebration without mishap or miscalculation—might fall into place. I applied John 2:1–11 and my prayer over the weeks leading up to the wedding was, metaphorically speaking, ‘take the water of the wedding and turn it into the finest wine’; in other words, ‘take our less-than-perfect attempts to organise a wedding and turn it into a spectacular day’… and God delivered, beyond expectations. Even the weather was amazing—which is a miracle considering the summer we have just had!
Jesus understood and knew my anxiety. I invited him to attend to the details of an event that was important to me and my family—and he did. This may seem like an unimportant prayer, particularly when Aotearoa New Zealand is reeling from the disaster of Cyclone Gabrielle. But if I can invite Jesus into the circumstances of a wedding, we as a nation can invite him into the restoration of our land and the healing of the hearts of those who have been devastated by these dreadful weather events.
Whether our prayers are for big things or small things, Jesus loves to answer them. We just need to humble ourselves and pray and seek his face, to invite him into our pain and ask him to remedy things that are out of our control and beyond our capabilities to manage.
The fallout from Cyclone Gabrielle is beyond what any government alone can fix. It is going to take cities, towns and communities coming together—working together—to find ways forward. The Salvation Army has a key role to ‘pray’ right now. We know it will take a miracle: particularly around food supply with a wind-blown, sodden harvest laying on the ground; a building crisis; and severe infrastructure breakdown, but God is up to the job. He will take our prayers and creatively and spectacularly answer them, above and beyond all we could possibly ask—we just need to ask.
This edition of War Cry is full of stories of restoration and answered prayers. I hope you will enjoy and take heart from the many instances of answered prayer within these pages.
