Praying the Distance

I'm watching a church service this morning and it's time to pray for the sick. I remember standing in for members of our families for healing all the time. Somehow I kept  it up, though I saw no results with my human eyes. Maybe their healing is on the other side, maybe they will get the miracle they hope for.

But what the church doesn't see anymore are miracle healings; people stacked up at the altar praying through, waiting, expecting, sometimes for HOURS and DAYS. I've read books and stories of these miracles; blind eyes opened, deaf ears hear, a shorter limb lengthened, even the dead brought back to life.

Why doesn't this happen anymore?

Prayer is like running. When you start running, it's not so bad. You start to huff and puff a bit, time goes very slow, after a while your lungs feel like concrete and that searing pain in your side is crippling. Most people stop running. They just stand there knowing they have to get home, at the very least. Some people start walking instead. But very few run through the pain.

The pain is there to make us stop, turn around, go back, go no further. But runners know that when the pain starts, it's just the beginning of a long, long run that has no pain, only results, because the pain does stop.

We don't 'see' results when we pray because no one goes the distance, prays through the hard part with expectation. Yes, we petition the Lord, but we do not run the distance with prayer. Imagine the results, the MIRACLES, if we did!

Faith. Have faith, pray much, expect more!

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father." John 14:12