Contradictory Prayer
In 1987 a toddler from Texas named Jessica McClure somehow fell into a narrow abandoned well. She ended up wedged in place 22 feet down with her foot up against her head. The drama of “Baby Jessica” dragged on for two days as rescue workers labored to save her. Television crews spread to story to viewers nation-wide.
Rescuers dug a parallel shaft next to the narrow well. After cutting through dirt and rock, a firefighter named Robert O’Donnell descended and was able to touch the little girl and even take her vital signs. But then Baby Jessica suddenly slid down another eight feet. Rescuers drew O’Donnell back to the surface for a reconsideration of the rescue strategy.
Realizing that the child could not live much longer unless freed, the team lowered McDonnell again. Once more he could touch her. He took hold of her leg. He heard calls from the top, “Pull hard! You may have to break her in order to save her!” As the firefighter tugged, the little girl weakly cried, “no, no.” The pulling scraped her face, but they finally dislodged her. Baby Jessica was saved.
“You may have to break her in order to save her.”
For years I have prayed that the Lord would send a revival as He did in other generations. I have prayed regularly for a great awakening and a great harvest of souls. Lately, like many others, I have been praying that this Covid 19 pandemic would end. However, as I think about it, I am beginning to wonder if these two prayers might not be contradictory.
Jesus, in the garden of Gethsemane, prayed, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” But then He also prayed, “Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done.”
Sometimes safety we naturally desire is not what we most need for spiritual well-being.
Isaiah 53:7 prophetically says of Christ, “He was oppressed and he was afflicted.” Isaiah 63:9 says, “In all their afflictions, he was afflicted.” I take great comfort in the fact that my burdens are the Lord’s burdens. My Savior is touched with the feelings of my infirmities. Our fears, concerns, sicknesses, and pains – they all matter to God.
Psalm 119 says of affliction, “Before I was afflicted I went astray.” (v. 67) “It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy statutes.” (v. 71) Sometimes God uses affliction to teach us, and to shape our character.
Sometimes He uses afflictions to bring people to a place of repentance and faith. Hosea 5:15 says, “In their affliction they will seek me early.”
It may be that God is going to use this present pandemic — the disruption of our lives, the sickness, and even the death — to help some recognize their spiritual need and turn to Christ in faith.
So, I pray a contradictory prayer; I pray for the end of this pandemic, I pray that governments will soon restore our liberties, I pray that people will go back to work, and I pray that we can resume normal church services. Nevertheless I am still praying for revival and for people to come to know Christ as Savior.
The second inaugural speech of our sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln, reads more like a sermon on the providence of God than it does a political speech. Near its conclusion he said, “Fondly do we hope – fervently do we pray – that this scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so it still must be said, ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”
Fondly do I wish and fervently do I pray that this pandemic will end. But I am also praying for repentance, revival, and conversions in our land. And if God wills that this pandemic continues to bring about that end, “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
David A. Oliver (B.A., M.A., D.Pas.Th) has been the pastor of Ashley Baptist Church in Belding, MI since 1994. He currently serves as president of the Independent Fundamental Baptist Fellowship of Michigan, and is also president of Proclaiming the Truth, Inc. (Neighborhood Bible Time). He also serves as chaplain for two west Michigan fire departments. He and his wife Penny have been married since 1987, and have three children and two grandchildren.