“And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.”
As always, 5:00 am came early. After some time with the Lord, we headed out the door. We had a short trip to the tree stand and were set up well before daylight. It felt like we had been sitting there forever, but in reality, it was only about an hour. All of the sudden my dad whispers, “Ryan, there is a deer out in the field!” I picked up my binoculars and saw a nice buck following a doe in the cut cornfield. We watched for a few minutes, and I thought all hope was lost because they were walking toward the neighboring property. In disappointment I put my binoculars away as the deer kept walking away. My dad then says, “Ryan, we just need to pray and ask the Lord to bring these deer over here.” I responded, “Do you want me to pray out loud?” He replies, “No, pray to yourself and I will pray to myself.” I remember praying, “Lord, you said that if we had the faith as a grain of a mustard seed we could move mountains; these are your animals, please bring them over here.” I am not sure if I had opened my eyes yet when my dad says, “Look they are running over here.” Within seconds, the buck, plus 5 other deer came barreling into the woods. The doe splits off from the buck and the buck runs right in front of us. My dad started yelling at the buck because it was running full blast! It stops at 30 yards, I got the crossbow scope lined up on him and then squeezed the trigger. It was a perfect double lung shot. He ran about 50 yards and started to wobble. I thought he was going to crash right there, but somehow got a second wind and went maybe another 50 or 60 yards. Thats when he went down, and I started to shake really bad!
Later that day we were driving home from the taxidermist when the thought from my early morning devotions crossed my mind. Mark 1:35 “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.” In this passage of scripture, Jesus Christ is trying to teach us the importance in prayer. Next to this verse there was a note I had written when my pastor was discipling the young men one day. It said, “source of power.” He was teaching us the way to have power in our Christian lives was to pray. There are two thoughts that come to mind when seeking a powerful prayer.
“…The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” (James 5:16) The prayer of the righteous man is about having a life pleasing to God. We know that no one is perfect, but doing our best to please the Lord will help us to have a powerful prayer. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” (Psalm 66:18) This iniquity could be anything; doing something the Bible says you shouldn’t do, not obeying the Lord when He leads you to do something, etc. The word regard means to look towards; to point or be directed. If you know that you have things in your life that shouldn’t be there the Bible says the Lord will not hear your prayers. I encourage you to examine your heart to see if you have unconfessed sin.
I am reminded of the story in Acts 12 when Peter was put in prison by king Herod. It says that in the middle of the night the angel of the Lord delivered him from the prison. If we continue reading, we can see that people were gathered together praying for Peter to be delivered. When Peter knocked on the door a young girl came to see who it was. She recognized Peter’s voice at the door, and then ran back inside to tell everyone that was praying. They all could not believe what she was saying! I believe this is where we are at sometimes in our prayer life. We ask the Lord to answer our prayers, but don’t actually believe He will. The Bible says in Matthew 21:22 “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” If you don’t believe God will do it, why would He? Are you praying with faith today? Do you truly believe God will answer your prayers? I have some great news for you! He’s closer than you think!
By Ryan Barnett
Memory Verse
Mark 1:35
“And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.”
