The Power of Prayer & Christian Suffering

Let’s see if I can keep this post relatively brief for a change!

I have had several instances recently where a prayer to Jehovah has been answered within a very short time-span. As usual with the matters I have been experiencing these past two months I was surprised on each and every occasion, but really I shouldn’t be, my faith is strong, and I do trust that Jehovah will answer my prayers, but nevertheless, I am always somewhat amazed.

I’ll list them below for you:

• Whilst in Morocco a few weeks ago I started to come down with a head-cold, it came on during Sunday afternoon, and got worse during Monday, the usual symptoms of a sore throat and no energy and by Monday afternoon my sinuses were starting to block and my nose started to stream. As I went to bed that night I was concerned, as I had a golf match the next day against a man I used to play with regularly at my home club in England, who just happened to be visiting Agadir with his son on a surfing holiday. I wanted to beat him, and at the very least to have enough energy to play well, but I feared that I wouldn’t get much sleep with a sore throat and a runny nose, as well as the low-energy state I was in due to the cold. So, as I prayed that night, I told Jehovah the situation and got into bed. Literally within seconds, as I lay my head on the pillow, I could feel my sinuses clearing, the sore throat stopped, and the nose dried up. Within 30 seconds all of this occurred, it was really remarkable to experience, and I cleared my throat a few times to make sure I wasn’t imagining it. I was clear of all symptoms, had a good night’s sleep, and had enough energy to beat my abortion-loving heathen adversary the next day. Praise the Lord!

• Next, I was driving to Birmingham last week, late on the Tuesday night, as I was going to be watching a major professional badminton championship for the rest of the week. As I loaded the car and set off it was terrible weather. High winds and torrential heavy rain, it felt really dangerous to be driving at all. So, as I had around 200 miles ahead of me, I said a prayer as I was driving, asking God to stop the rain and help me to have a safe journey to my destination. Within 10 minutes, the rain eased off and the wind dropped. The rain didn’t stop altogether, but eased down to just a light drizzle, which was no problem at all. No spray on the road, and good visibility was restored. Once again, I was pleasantly surprised, but shouldn’t have been.

• I picked up another bug of some kind at the event in Birmingham, and as I was driving back on Friday I was feeling rough. It wasn’t a cold this time, something else, and it left me feeling really run down, with no energy at all, even climbing the stairs was hard, with hollow legs. I also had a scratchy throat and messy sinuses. I was sleeping for 10-12 hours each night that weekend. Almost a mild flu. I eventually realised that the bug could hang around for a while, so on Sunday night I prayed again for healing and went to bed, and slept well. The next day I felt much better, and I went to the gym the following day and did my normal weights routine. Yet the day before I could barely drag myself up the stairs. Once again, incredible, but Praise the Lord for His prompt response.

• Two weeks ago I became aware of an impingement within the top of my right arm, just below the shoulder joint. It was annoying and slightly painful if I moved my arm upwards or outwards, and there was crunching and grating of ligaments (or something inside the joint, I’m no expert on anatomy). I had no idea of how this had arisen, but it came on before I got back into weight-lifting. Maybe too much golf in Morocco? Anyway, I decided to pray again for healing, which I did just two nights ago, and I confess I was really amazed to wake up the next day and when I stretched, there was no discomfort and no grating. I kept lifting the arm and moving it about nearly all day, as I couldn’t really believe it had cleared overnight (this is all new to me, and I’m sure I will eventually not be surprised by these minor miracles).

(Edit on 4th September 2020: all of the bugs and pains during this period were as a result of the process of sanctification, which manifests in your body suffering).

It’s all happened very quickly for me since 2016,  and I now have maximum possible faith. I have seen enough these past two months to realise that everything in the Bible is true, all of the promises from Jehovah are true, and He hears all of my prayers and responds very quickly indeed. Trust Him and obey Him, rather than following your own heart, and you too could experience His immense and loving power working for you daily.

Over the past couple of years I have also prayed for other people. One was a friend’s sister, who had cancer in her throat, and I prayed for her, and she eventually had the all clear. I also prayed for a former friend who had stomach problems, but who relied on modern medicine to cure him, to no avail, but eventually he wrote that he was cured. He put it down to some supplement he had discovered though, whereas I put it down t my prayers, which took longer to work due to his lack of faith in the efficacy of prayer for healing (I don’t know if he even tried prayer).

I heard some scripture very recently which covers this topic (2 Chronicles 16):

The Death and Burial of Asa

 

11And, behold, the acts of Asa, first and last, lo, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. 12And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians. 13And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign. 14And they buried him in his own sepulchres, which he had made for himself in the city of David, and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odours and divers kinds of spices prepared by the apothecaries’ art: and they made a very great burning for him.

It is clear that Asa had a record of not trusting God, as the previous verses in this chapter show:

7And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the LORD thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand. 8Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubims a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen? yet, because thou didst rely on the LORD, he delivered them into thine hand. 9For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars. 10Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time.

It didn’t take very long for Jehovah to wipe out this King with illness once the King had shown his true colours by imprisoning the seer (prophet) in his anger. Shortly thereafter he was dead. I caution all readers to be fearful of Jehovah. He does not tolerate human pride and arrogance nor those who show anger towards speakers of truth.

I also mentioned Christian suffering in the title of this post, as it is clear that many Christians believe they are ordained to suffer here on earth, including via ill health. I recently had a discussion with my friend and brother locally on this subject, and he agreed with me eventually that there’s no way a loving all-powerful God such as Jehovah intends His faithful and obedient followers to suffer (the ‘and obedient’ adjective is crucial in this regard. There’s little point in having faith in God if at the same time you just igonre His laws, commands and statutes, and live your life in exactly the same way as the heathens. Obey Him, and have faith. My friend was happy to suffer with migraines and tinnitus, but had been subjected to some years of Roman Catholic schooling, so I could understand why he felt this was part and parcel of being a Christian.

Common sense should tell us that our God loves us and so does not want us to suffer, and in fact He wants to bless us with good health and plenty and all the usual blessings we see in the Bible for His righteous faithful. Sometimes nations let him down, and the whole nation is judged guilty and suffer God’s wrath, but even then, a remnant is always preserved and blessed, and this was true even when the Israelites were captive in Egypt and Babylon. It will be true in the near future too, as many nations (probably the whole world) faces a final judgement and we see the return of Jesus Christ for His second mission.

As usual though, our faith has a counter-intuitive element, as we Christians DO INDEED suffer every day. We suffer such pain at seeing nearly the whole world turned away from Jehovah and turned to other gods (to include humanism and atheism, cut from the same cloth). The vast majority of Christians believe (for no good reason at all) that the entirety of Jehovah’s laws, commands and statutes were thrown out when Jesus died on the cross for our sins, despite dozens of Jesus’ own words to the contrary. Jesus was always obedient to His father, and very often talked about the importance of the Law. Not one bit of the Law was to pass away, and Jesus came to fulfill the law. Not to throw it all away and leave us in an earthly lawlessness. The definition of sin is the lack of obedience to God’s laws. Today, sadly, so few grasp this obvious fact, so they work seven days a week, they don’t help the poor, they have frequent divorces, they don’t rest their fields on sabbath years, they blaspheme, they covet others’ goods (under the false religion of socialism), they steal (again, via socialism) the list is endless. I stopped attending a local church when prayers were said for the UK’s National Health Service, a place where millions of babies are terminated each year, as well as elderly people starved or dehydrated to death, and countless other evils. Why would a real Christian pray for that? They wouldn’t.

To close, I said a long prayer to Jehovah last night about my last few market trades, all of which are in the red. I told Him that I couldn’t care less about the money, I have plenty and my lifestyle would not be affected at all if I lost all of my trading capital (around £280,000). But He knows why I want some gains, to push forward with a pot of money for my theonomy project and to help the poor locally. I have never lost faith that He will deliver this for me, and I have a month left for the remaining trades to turn around and rise in value (as the market declines) recouping my losses and making some gains. Psalm 1 resonates with me, so I have great faith He will deliver for me and a few brothers who want to let the world know once again about His laws, commands and statutes, the perfect set-up for a great nation. Despite my faith, I realise that a prayer to Jehovah on the subject can only deliver a good response, so I will update you all in the weeks ahead. Meanwhile, I praise the Lord again today, and every day, for His swift answers to my prayers and to all that He has blessed me with, and the experiences of these past two months, all of which are literally priceless.