"So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped" Joshua 10:13

At the beginning of 2011 our couple’s small group read the book “Sun Stand Still” by Steven Furtick. I have always struggled in my prayer life, not being very consistent with praying. Honestly, I always wondered if God heard my prayers as they were usually the same prayer over and over. I had been taught over the years that God wants to talk to you, so you should pray. I also knew, somewhat, that there is a Godly power that you can tap into (per se) when you pray. I had never really experienced that—or maybe I had, but I did not really realize it. I knew the verse about having the faith of a mustard seed, but there’s a huge difference between knowing a verse and really KNOWING a verse (and living it out and believing it with all your heart, soul, and mind). I had also read and knew about all the miracles Jesus had performed during his ministry. Again, though, I found it hard to relate to those most likely because it’s hard to imagine things when we don’t see them first hand. Of course, yes, I know I’ve seen miracles here on earth, but do we give God all the credit He deserves?
So, with all of that going through my head, I dove into the book “Sun Stand Still”. I had no clue the impact it was going to have on me. In the book Steven talks about the day the sun stood still for Joshua during his battle with the Amorites. Basically, they were in the midst of battle and the day was ending. He (Joshua) knew that when night fell, the Amorites would scatter under the darkness which would work against them. He prayed that God would make the sun stand still, and God granted his request. The sun stopped for an entire day, and they won the battle. Something about this struck me more so than any other miracle I have read about in the Bible (and there are lots of them in the New Testament). If God can make the sun stand still for Joshua, then He surely can do it for us in our times of need. If we pray, knowing that God surely can make the sun stand still—with the faith of a mustard seed, then we surely will see results. They may not be the results we want to hear or see, but golly jeez, we will see results. This lit a fire in my heart, a passion, for prayer. We all go through not fun stuff, and we see our friends going through some rough stuff. We say we’re praying for them, but are we really? I have said it many times, then whispered a quick prayer under my breath, something to the tune of “Lord, please be with Mary Jane today when she goes to the doctor, or gets her test results, etc…”—you get the picture. But what if we truly asked and believed that God could make the sun stand still for our friend/family member who is really facing a super stressful and trying time?
I took it to heart. So, back in January, when David and I put Kathryn down for the night, we started to kneel beside her crib and pray every night. We pray for her, we pray for each other, and we pray for our friends. Specifically we have prayed “Sun Stand Still” prayers for 2 couple friends this year going through infertility issues. We began praying for both of these couples in January (without telling either one of them). In March we learned that one of them was expecting twins. They ended up having some complications about halfway through their pregnancy, so we ended up with follow up prayers for them to deliver healthy twins at full term. The twins were born around 37 weeks and are healthy. It was definitely an answer to prayer as they had been struggling for a couple of years to get pregnant, and then had quite the scare about halfway through their pregnancy. Again, praying that God would pull off a miracle for them, and having the faith of a mustard seed surely seemed to work.
We learned back in the Spring that our other friend couple were starting the process of adoption. This can be a super lengthy process, being very emotional and stressful along the way. They hit a few bumps in the road, but got their paperwork sent in late summer/early fall. We have been praying fervently that they would be able to bring their boy home before Christmas. As late fall approached, it was apparent this was not God’s plan. Our prayers changed to them getting to their boy by Christmas. As I was looking at my facebook page last night, our friends had posted that yesterday they were given permission to travel, go meet their son, and start the process to finalize their adoption. They leave this Sunday, Dec 18th, just in time for Christmas—a Christmas miracle for them. Many people were praying for them, and God heard those prayers. I’ve heard many people say something to the fact that God answers prayers in what we consider to be the 11th hour. This appears to be one of them, of course, He knew His plan all along (so, is it really the 11th hour?).
Well, those were what I consider the “big” requests. What about the “small” requests? It’s easy for us to “quantify” things I guess you could say—this is a big thing, that’s a small thing, but to God, are they not all important? Does he not really care about all of our prayers? Back in March my husband had to go to Japan for a week for work. Many of you know the back side of the Japan trip (I’ll talk about that in a minute), but it was rough going from the start. He was supposed to leave on a Friday, but his flights got cancelled (so he ended up leaving on Sat instead). He came home that Friday and ended up spending the day with us. Right after lunch he realized his passport was missing. After he left the airport he went to Chic-fil-a for breakfast, so he ran by CFA to see if his passport was there. It was not. He decided to head to the airport, so I called airport lost & found to see if it had been found. It had not. David had already searched his car high and low to no avail. We had no clue where it was. I went outside to look in his car one last time, and said a quick sun stand still prayer. I opened the door and between the floorboard and his seat was his passport. I give God the credit for that one as he could have ended up missing out on that trip which would have probably meant us reimbursing his company for the flight he would have missed. Of course then there’s the rest of the story—the following Friday the massive earthquake and tsunami hit, which then created all sorts of fun with trying to get him back home. Again, God answered all those prayers and got him out 24 hours after all that.
There was also the time where we went to Myrtle Beach to buy new binoculars, were walking along the beach at Huntington Beach State Park and lost the eyepiece cover to the binoculars. On our way back to the car we happened to find them washed up on the beach—basically a 1 in a million chance of that happening. I later told David that I had said a prayer while walking that we would find the eyepiece covers. And again, God answered that—what we would consider miniscule—prayer.
There are other prayers that have been answered this year. I’ve seen friend’s marriages restored. There was the whole routine mammogram turned into breast cancer scare last month. There have been a lot of answered prayers this year.
With all that said, do I still falter in my prayer life? Yes. Do I wonder if God hears me? Yes. I still find myself “stuck in a rut” when praying—praying for the same things over and over. What I remind myself, though, is that if it’s from my heart and what is truly on my heart, then God will listen. When it comes to prayer, I find this verse super comforting: “…the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” Romans 8:26