Prayer in the Face of Death.

Death has been all around from this last week – In the news a young golfer’s wife joined my dear caustic friend twice her age who both suffered for the second time from the same cause, breast cancer. The son of a dear friend who fought a tumour and eventually lost the battle to cling to life and a very independent elderly lady who coped with a large disfiguring growth on the side of her neck for decades, but died having developed dementia in her final years. A mother and a wife of friends are both waiting to shrug off this mortal coil, both cancer victims, time almost up.
I remember fervent prayers being said for another young man with a brain tumour some years ago, who survived with a reminder of how close he had come, and I wonder did the call to prayer come from our desire for healing, from our love for this family, or from God’s call on our hearts to use this person to demonstrate His power. Not everyone is healed, not even Jesus did a blanket “one size fits all,” but picked individuals except in the case of the group of ten lepers, where only one came back to thank Him, and that obviously was to show us just how ungrateful we can be, how blessings are so easily forgotten, taken for granted. However, later Peter seemed to do even more, even his shadow was thought to heal people...and the Bible did state that those coming after would do even greater exploits...
I know I have felt led to pray for some for a period, so they are given more time, time to make their peace with God and man, and then the call leaves, and they relapse and are released into eternal rest. Should I feel blame because I have slacked on the job? There is no point praying when you sense your desire is out of God’s will – while He regrets sickness and death, it is inevitable in this fallen world corrupted by man’s putting his own way before God’s. We have to trust His promise that He will bring good out of evil, He who demonstrated His love through suffering. We all have our allotted span, and although our fervency and motives may cause Him to give more time occasionally, it is not universal – or is it? Miraculous healings are taking place today in countries which suffer persecution for their faith in vast numbers – the sign of God’s power is needed there as a witness to others and encouragement to the afflicted. So our self-reliance, our apathy, our complacency, our lack of expectation all dull the edgy need for demonstration.
Yet in time of trouble, the vast majority of people appreciate prayer –even the Reader’s Digest says its works! Prayer does not have to be a demand to change our circumstances, but to enable us to cope with the inevitable, to help us accept His will, no matter what. Then His kingdom can truly come!