It just jumped off the page at me…and slapped me up-side the head when it did! In AMP, we have been studying James with our teenagers. We play together, then we read a passage. We’ve been able to watch a video-teaching about this each week, and then we break into smaller groups and discuss what we’ve seen and heard. The Book of James is so FULL of great teachings: Controlling your tongue, dealing with suffering, Quick to listen & slow to speak, faith without works is dead…SO MUCH TRUTH!
One of my FAVORITE verses comes in the James 5:16- “The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” (“The prayer of a righteous man availeth much” if you prefer it from the KJV!) I LOVE breaking down this verse! I love looking at how EFFECTIVE Prayer works and what righteousness REALLY looks like…and even what POWER is shown through prayer! It’s an incredible verse of teaching!
But that’s not the line that jumped up and Will Smith’d me in the face! (What? Too Soon?) It’s the very NEXT verse that stung me
“Elijah was a human as we are.” James 5:17
James is discussing the POWER of prayer…and then he proceeds to discuss an EXAMPLE OF PRAYER. And one that every good Jewish boy and girl had heard of: Elijah. He’s the guy that went up against the prophets of Ba’al…and TORCHED them. He’s the one that stood up to Ahab. He’s the Prophet that heard from God in a “Still small voice”. He was carried away in a whirlwind to heaven! THIS GUY was a BIG DEAL! He was well-respected through generations…he was a true HERO and PATRIARCH of Israel!!! James begins to tell about the “Rain story”-Elijah prayed…and it didn’t rain for over 1278 days! (3.5 years…yes, I did the math!) And as James is telling this story of GREAT POWER…he tosses this little tidbit in there…Elijah…is just like us!
Honestly…I wanted to disagree with him! “No way James-Elijah was a REALLY great guy! He did REALLY great things! I’m just AVERAGE guy doing average things!” But the words James uses are intentional: JUST LIKE US. He’s HUMAN like us. He had ANXIETY like many of us. He had FEAR like many of us. He was tired and flawed and arrogant and exhausted…like all of us. His point was this: The power isn’t in the person doing the praying…the power is in the person RECEIVING THE PRAYER!
THE SAME POWER that rolled the stone away is the same power that is hearing my prayer today! Now that’s something to crack your taco! Prayer is not about OUR strength…but the strength of the God to which we pray! And our God is STRONG! He controls weather…and HE is sending us rain on HIS time! He is bigger than CANCER, or COVID or CONSTRUCTION DELAYS or CONTROVERSY…or whatever it is that you are facing today!
As we celebrate National Day of Prayer, I want you to be reminded of how we started this year! We are a PEOPLE OF PRAYER! And that doesn’t mean WE are perfect and powerful…it means our GOD IS PERFECT AND POWERFUL!
What are you facing today? What is overwhelming you? HOW CAN WE PRAY FOR YOU TODAY? Let’s be a people of prayer…EVERY day!
Shalom Alachiem
Don
