A friend of mine recently sent me an email with an interesting story that went like this:
In a small town, a person decided to open up a brothel, which was right opposite to a church. The church and its congregation started a campaign to block the brothel from opening with petitions and prayed daily against his business.
Work progressed. However, when it was almost complete and was about to open a few days later, a strong lightning struck the brothel and it was burnt to the ground.
The church folks were rather smug in their outlook after that, till the brothel owner sued the church authorities on the grounds that the church through its congregation and prayers was ultimately responsible for the destruction of his brothel, either through direct or indirect actions or means.
In its reply to the court, the church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection that their prayers were reasons for the act of God. As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork at the hearing and commented:
The church folks were rather smug in their outlook after that, till the brothel owner sued the church authorities on the grounds that the church through its congregation and prayers was ultimately responsible for the destruction of his brothel, either through direct or indirect actions or means.
In its reply to the court, the church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection that their prayers were reasons for the act of God. As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork at the hearing and commented:
"I don't know how I'm going to decide this case, but it appears from the paperwork, we have a brothel owner who believes in the power of prayer and we have an entire church that doesn't."
It’s interesting to note how this story speaks to me as a Christian, I often pray to my Father for something but when it turns out to be something more than what I had bargained for, I begin to question if it was actually a result of my prayer or mere coincidence. I have prayed for many things, big and small in my 24 years of life, and often God gives them to me, sometimes as I had hoped for , and sometimes not as I had hoped for. It is often these times that I accept my answered prayers with reluctance. And who’s to blame, for I was the one who asked for it. There were times when I even rejected it out of fear.
In one of the seminars in the course Battlefield of the Mind, the speaker, Joyce Meyer, urged her listeners to ‘think about what you are thinking about’. Often we have thoughts running through our minds, but not all these thoughts are necessarily healthy and promote a sound mind. Therefore we’ll have to constantly pause and think about what we are thinking about, and figure out if that thought is from our own critical thinking, or our own imagination, or whether it is from God, or from the devil.
When I think about the times when I chicken out of God’s promises because I let fear get the better of me, I regret it. But it’s not to say I don’t battle with negative thoughts or fear anymore. I still do. Everyday, actually. And each day is a tough battle.
