Praying today, my mind was overwhelmed by a story.
It was a story told to a class of students of which I was one at William Booth college in London.
It was told by an old Salvation Army officer long retired but teaching biblical prophecy.
This guy had been working for years in remote locations in Africa, taking the gospel into deep dark areas that were littered with poverty and people who had never heard of Jesus.
When he taught, he never used notes or planned a lecture, he just used to open a battered old bible and start to talk.
His voice was like an anaesthetic really, but that didn't really matter because he oozed Jesus.
And his stories demanded your total attention.
He was telling us that when he was a young minister in a very remote African village, he became extremely ill with some rare viral disease. So ill that he was a whisker away from death.
After a long and hard battle with the illness he suddenly awoke from his delirious stupor. He was weak but alive and seemingly well.
Sitting at the bottom of the bed was another Salvation Army Officer, a willowy and painfully thin old man of seventy three.
It turned out that this old officer had heard God in a dream say he needed to go to this village because a young man was ill and he needed to pray for him.
The two officers did not know each other.
The problem was the village was 350 miles away from where the old man lived.
So the old guy got on his bike and pedalled three hundred and fifty miles in obedience to God.
He stayed and prayed passionately over the young guy until his fever broke.
When the young guy awoke, the old guy said a final prayer and cycled three hundred and fifty miles back to his own village.
I don't know why I recalled this story today.
I just did.
But it has really challenged me.
I asked myself the question this morning, how far would I go to pray passionately for someone?
How far?
How obedient am in the act of responding to God's prompting?
I start here today because I believe God has asked me to throw this question over to whoever reads my blog today.
So I challenge you.
No, God challenges us to ask ourselves.
How far?
How far would we go when someone is in need?
Massive blessings on your life today.
