Rescuing Prayer

Posted on September 28, 2015 by Graeme Wilson in Victory Call

“The LORD is righteous in all His ways, gracious in all His works. The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He also will hear their cry and save them.” Psalm 145:17-19

This Victory Call is one that I revisit with you to remind you, to remind myself, of prayer – of talking to and with God; of interceding on behalf of others.

It begins with a whale of a tale, a newspaper story that came in a season of life when my daughter (who is now with the LORD) was clinging to life by a very weakened thread.

“A female humpback whale had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, and a line tugging in her mouth.

A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her …a very dangerous proposition. One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer. They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.” -source unknown

While my daughter was in intensive care she needed serious rescuing as well. It took teams of doctors, a new liver, and an assortment of different life-sustaining machines to untangle her from a very precarious state. Like the whale she was connected to hundreds of yards of wires, tubes, hoses, etc. The only difference is hers were keeping her alive! Machines were working hard to breath, feed and physically function for her until the body -with its new liver- could do what it was designed to do, on its own.

In the whale story, a fisherman radioed for help and a rescue team arrived. In “our story” I told one person and rescue teams showed up, in the form of all the doctors, nurses, technicians, etc. They also showed up as prayer warriors from New Jersey to England. Our rescue team was everywhere. Hundreds of brothers and sisters in Christ…even the unconverted to Christ, were praying for her, for us, to be delivered. They endured until, one line after the other, she was freed from all those machines and once again breathing, walking, eating, thinking, speaking without any mechanical assistance. Her physical healing came! Our rescuers prayed until something happened.

Just like the whale much is not known concerning the “why” of my dear one’s entanglement. In fact, whenever I watch TV news stories like the one mentioned above, I am always stunned by the seeming senselessness of the whale, to get itself into so much trouble.

(Have you ever thought about it? All of us are potentially one decision away from victory or defeat, entanglement or freedom, sinking or swimming…the list could go on and on, but you get my point.)

We need each other. We need rescuing.

Consider those whom you know who like the whale are weighted down by life traps and may need you to come to their rescue. Are we willing to wear out the carpet beside our beds, travailing in prayer? Are we willing to intercede for them with all our heart, soul, mind and strength?

May it be said of us that we were not afraid to pray, that we were available at a moment’s notice to come to the rescue.

Stephanie Dale

Stephanie D. Paul serves as part of the Addiction Recovery Team at America’s Keswick as Director of Women of Character. She has been married for over 30 years to Sesky Paul who is a graduate of the Colony of Mercy. They have two grown children.
Her single focus in ministry at Keswick is to image Christ in grace and truth to wounded and hurting women, encouraging them to make Jesus the truest Lover of their soul and the One in whom all hope lies.

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