Category Archives: Tragedy

Prayer for a Lost Dog

Last evening our two year old created a stressful situation in our household.  She opened up our patio door and let Sally (our little dog) right out the door.  Sally ran off into another neighbor’s yard immediately and then vanished down the street.  She was nowhere to be found.  She seemed to enjoy this newfound freedom.  Usually, when we take her outside, we tie her to a leash.  But this time she didn’t have a leash and she was making a break for it.  This caused our entire household to go into crisis mode.  Our five year old started to cry.  Our nine year old started to cry.  And because our two year old didn’t like seeing other people cry, she started to cry.  Three daughters crying at the same time…this is not something a dad gets used to.  So I started crying (just kidding).

My wife and I tried to console each of our children by letting them know that Sally would come back after a while.  After all, this is the place where she receives food, water and love.  But this did not calm their nerves.  We stepped outside and started to call for her, but she wouldn’t respond.  “She’s gone forever, she’s never coming back,” said my oldest daughter.  Even though I knew that wasn’t true, and even though I tried to convince her otherwise, this is exactly how she felt.  Twenty minutes had passed and still no Sally.

Then my wife had an idea.  “Let’s pray for God to bring Sally back to us.”  So the five of us gathered around a chair in our living room and my wife said a simple yet sincere prayer to God on behalf of Sally.  She prayed something like this,

“God, we know that you can bring Sally back to our house.  You know how much we love Sally and how much we miss her right now.  Could you please bring Sally back, and bring her back quickly?  Amen.”

After the prayer, the girls ran off into another room.  They were still weepy and yet were trying to hold it together.  No more than ten seconds had passed and guess who was at the door?  Sally!  I yelled, “Sally’s back!” so that everyone in the house could hear.  My wife asked me, “Are you serious?”  There she was, trying to get into the house.  We opened up the patio door and we hugged her and gave her a treat.  Did God answer our prayer?  Or was it just a coincidence?  This event reminded me about two things that we so often forget when we pray.

First, God wants you to take everything to Him in prayer.  In the Contemporary English Version of Philippians 4:6, we are told “Don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything.”  The word everything in this verse means the “big stuff” and “small stuff.”  Everyone takes the “big stuff” to God in prayer.  When a tragedy strikes, people turn to a higher power.  Many self-proclaimed agnostics turn into practical believers when bad things happen to them.  It is human nature to call upon God when the “big stuff” happens.  But when it comes to the “small stuff,” like a seven pound dog running down the street, we can feel foolish for going before the Lord in prayer.  Our daughters were taught a tremendous lesson last night because they saw God answer a prayer for something that might seem small to God, but it was a major issue to them.

If you can truly see into God’s heart, you will see that He genuinely cares about you.  We are told to “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).  Notice the word “all” in this verse.  Not just the major things in life that cause you anxiety, but even those small things that you don’t think God would be interested in.  Often times, we think we need to save up our prayers for when it really counts.  Therefore, we don’t pray about the little things.  But this is where our faith can really grow.  When we see God working in the small things, it feeds our belief so that when the big things come our way, we have the faith to pray for God to work.

God is never overwhelmed by our prayers.  We can get overwhelmed by other people’s requests.  But God cannot.  God can hear simultaneously millions of requests and not be confused as to who is speaking.  That is our God.  And if God couldn’t do that, then He wouldn’t be God.  The very definition of God is that He is all-knowing, and an all-knowing God has the capacity to hear everything all humans say and has the power to respond to every single request.

Second, when your request is God’s will, He will respond immediately.  Ten seconds after we prayed as a family, Sally was at our door.  My wife reminded me what she had said at the end of her prayer, “bring her back quickly.”  God did just that.  But doesn’t God have better things to do?  Yes, He does, and He is doing those better things at the same time.  He does everything at the same time, so for Him, He doesn’t have to prioritize like we do.  He just does things that are His will.  And it was God’s will to bring little Sally back to our home so that our girls could see their faith grow.

Jesus told a story once about a widow who pleaded with a judge to bring her justice concerning an enemy.  Someone was taking advantage of her, and her only hope was a judge who didn’t care about people.  The judge ignored her for a while.  But the widow was persistent.  She kept going back to the judge and asking him the same thing: bring me justice!  Because the widow kept bothering the judge, the judge finally brought justice to the situation.  Many times, people read this story and they try to figure out how God and this judge are similar.  But Jesus’ point in the story is that our God is the opposite of this judge.  God does care about people.  And our God will respond “quickly” to our requests (Luke 18:8).

If you are requesting something, and it is God’s will, you will not have to wait for it.  It will happen immediately.  I sat down with my two older daughters last night and made sure they noticed the connection between our prayer for Sally to come home and God’s answer to our prayer.  I told them that God listens to us and that He cares about us.  They nodded their heads in approval.  We all sat down and thanked God for caring about us and answering our prayer. Their faith is growing, and it was in a moment like this that God took the time to care for us.

If you are a parent or a grandparent, look for opportunities to pray with your children and grandchildren.  Teach them the importance of praying for everything.  Instill within them the faith that brings joy to their heavenly father’s heart.  And make sure you help them notice when God does answer their prayers immediately!  No matter how big or small “the stuff” might seem.

Are You Ready?

This week I am starting a three-week sermon series called “The Signs of the End.”  One of the things I am going to emphasize is that the Bible clearly teaches that there will be a time in the future when the world will experience horrific events.  Our hearts were crushed when we witnessed the terrorism at the Boston Marathon and the catastrophic destruction of the Oklahoma tornadoes.  It seems like these events happen on a regular basis in our lives now.  But these events are only a microcosm of what is to come.  In the Bible, the books called Daniel and Revelation depict a period of time called “The Great Tribulation” that lasts for seven years.  Utterly unthinkable things happen during this seven-year period.  We are told in Matthew 24 that God shortened this time to only seven years because if it would go on any longer no one would survive.

The words written about “The Great Tribulation” are to be a warning to us right now.  These prophecies were written to place fear within our hearts so that we turn away from the evil that tries to entangle us and instead turn towards God.  But, I also believe that the Bible will be just as useful to people during this tribulation as it is right now.  People will be able to read the book of Revelation and then go outside and see these events unfold before their very eyes.

During this seven-year tribulation, horrible events will take place.  You will not want to be living on this planet during this time period.  To prove my point, allow me to give you eight of them.

The worst famine ever.  This famine will inflate prices to astronomical levels.  For example, someone would have to work an entire day to afford just a small amount of wheat.  And this amount wouldn’t even be enough to feed your own family.  Therefore, working hard for your food will be futile.

Wars, plagues and wild beasts will kill one-fourth of the world’s population.  In Revelation 6:8, we are told that Death and Hades were given power to kill off a fourth of the world’s population. Today, we have over six billion people on this planet.  For argument’s sake, lets say that one billion Christians are raptured and will not be a part of this tribulation.  That means that in this one event, over one billion people will die.  Millions of people will die because of war.  Millions of people will die from disease.  And millions of people will die by being attacked by lions, and tigers and bears.

One third of the land and water on earth will be destroyed.  Trees and green grass will be burned up from falling hail (that is made up of fire mixed with blood).  A large meteorite will fall into the sea and then a different one will fall into the freshwater lakes and rivers.  This will cause part of the sea to turn into blood and kill off many sea creatures.  One third of the lakes and rivers will be poisoned and many people will die because the water is undrinkable.  Later on in the seven-year period, much of the ocean and freshwater lakes and rivers turn to blood.

Locusts torment the unsaved for five months. The description of scorpion-like locusts sounds like it is from a science fiction movie.  These locusts will be able to sting like scorpions.  The locusts were not allowed to kill anyone, but only torment people for five months.  “And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them” (Revelation 9:6).

 Two hundred million soldiers kill one-third of the world’s population.  Years ago China claimed to have an army of two hundred million (Time, May 21, 1965, p. 35).  Could this be a reference to China’s role in the end times?  Possibly, but this army could be made up of several different nations, so it might not be one individual nation.  While that is mere speculation, we can estimate that over one and a half billion people will be killed by this army.  The destruction is unthinkable.  The prophetic book of Joel describes the dread that will come over the people as they anticipate the approach of this army.

Boils.  Everyone who will follow the Antichrist will develop loathsome and malignant sores on their body.  During my freshman year of college, I developed a boil under my left armpit.  It was so painful, I couldn’t let any clothing touch it.  It was that painful.  I had to sleep a certain way to make sure the boil didn’t touch anything.  I can’t imagine having my body filled with boils.  The pain will be unbearable.

One hundred pound hail will fall on people.  We have all seen a hail storm at some point in our lives.  But the hail we see is small compared to what is described in Revelation.  We would be amazed if we saw dime sized hail.  But during the seven-year tribulation, hundred pounders will fall from the sky.  Gigantic hail will kill people.  These large ice balls will make homes look like Swiss cheese.

Two hundred miles of blood.  At the end of the seven-year tribulation, Jesus Christ will come down on a white horse and destroy every single evil human on the planet.  The destruction of human life is so great that blood will be seen for almost two hundred miles and will be four to five feet high.  What a horrible end to a tragic seven years.

So what do we do with all this info?  We could ignore it.  Most people do.  Possibly until it is too late.  Or we could allow it to motivate us to change.  If all this stuff is true and will happen someday, you want to avoid it!  But how can you avoid it?  God makes a promise to us that if we are a follower of Jesus Christ, then He will keep us from the hour of trial (the Great Tribulation) that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth (Revelation 3:10).

How do you become a follower of Jesus Christ?  You first have to believe.  You believe in your heart that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.  You believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is alive and has the power over sin and death and is able to forgive you of all your sins (past, present, future).  But you can’t just believe in your heart.  You need to confess that Jesus Christ is the leader of your life.  That He is the one who is in control over you.

Are you ready?  Do you believe in Jesus Christ as the forgiver of your sins?  Have you confessed to others that Jesus Christ is your leader?  If you can answer yes to those questions, then God will save you.  He will save you from the coming “Great Tribulation.”  He will save you from eternal damnation in the Lake of Fire.  He will make sure you spend eternity with Him on the New Heaven and the New Earth.  It is your choice.  Are you ready?