by Ever think you are not making a difference? Maybe age has caught up with you? Maybe health issues have dominated your life? Maybe just the challenges of life have gotten you down? Whatever the issues are – there are times in life we all feel as if we are not making a difference. We can feel quit depressed at our inability to physically serve the Lord. However, there is hope. Do not give up! One should never give up until the day we take our last breath and meet our Saviour!
Until we meet our Saviour, there is one thing we can all do regardless of life’s challenges in our lives – pray!
One prayer by one person can make a difference. Yes, just one prayer by one person. The prayer does not have to be long and flamboyant. Even a short and simple prayer can change things. There have been prayers I have prayed that I know no one else prayed because they were very specific prayers to my needs and God answered them. I am sure we all can think of prayers that only we prayed and God answered them. Sometimes, it could be as simple as “Dear Lord help me find a parking place.” At Christmas time, I rounded the corner and there was a person pulling out and I had the perfect parking place. Praise the Lord for his answered prayers.
Many prayers certainly make a difference as well. Sometimes people do not want to tell about a prayer request. My answer to them – tell! Speak up! If at all possible, tell others about your prayer request. I have known specific prayers to be answered by God because I have known many, many people were praying for that request.
Today, however, let’s focus on one prayer that drastically changed things. I saw the below verses the other day and they jumped out at me. I have read the account of Moses countless times; but this time, these individual verses stood out as if they were the only ones on the page.
Exodus 32:9-11 “And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: 10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. 11 And Moses besought the Lord his God…”
God was extremely aggravated with Israel and their sin. God wanted to be left alone so he could be angry with Israel. He wanted to “consume them.” He wanted them dead and gone. God was terribly angry.
Ever feel that way with your children? As parents, there have been times, we have been angry with our girls. Sometimes, they would say, “Why are you so mad at me?” I use to tell them, “What do you expect me to do when you do wrong? Do you expect me to sing a happy tune and smile?” I would go on to explain that when they do wrong, they can expect Mom and Dad to be upset and that Mom and Dad will not be singing happy tunes and smiling when they sin.
God is the same way as well. I do not understand why Christians think they can sin and think God must be ignoring their sin and singing a happy tune in heaven.
Back to the verses above. Israel had sinned and God was angry. He was not only angry –
he wanted to be left alone! God told Moses, “Now therefore let me alone.” God also said, “that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them.”
However, good-ole Moses would not leave God alone. Right after God says I want to “consume” the Israelites, God also says “I will make of thee (Moses) a great nation.” Verse 11 says “And Moses besought the Lord his God…”
Moses would not leave God alone. Moses poured out his heart before God in a short simple prayer.
Exodus 32:11-13 “And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand? 12 Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.”
Since Moses would not leave God alone, his simple prayer – by one person – helped to saved a whole nation.
Exodus 32:14 “And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.”
Anyone who has read the account of Moses and the Israelites, knows they go onto sin and get themselves into trouble many, many times. But, this particular time, their nation was spared because of a prayer by one person.
Never, ever, underestimate the power of one person praying.
James 5:15 “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
What if Moses had never prayed?
