Detours and Pray-dar
Day before yesterday was a day of the unexpected delays. I wanted to be on the
road by 10am. God had other plans. We had a wonderfully unexpected
detour to eat and pray with a good friend, Glenn. During that detour, we met new friend that I’m sure God intended to intersect with us this journey.
Well after noon and about 20 miles down the road of our journey,
Ashely realized one of the tires on her car had a puncture – a large
one. Our next delay sent us off to find a repair shop.
Two men with grease on their hands were busy fixing stuff.
up and explained our plight to the mechanic. He said he would look at
it and let us know. A woman stood off to the side as she waited for her
car to get finished. She looked hot and tired.
We had long enough to strike up a conversation with her. Her name is
Barbi. I asked her what her dream was. She said, “My dreams have been
trampled so many times, I don’t even want to dream anymore.” I could
tell that her heart longed to dream and it didn’t take much
encouragement before she was talking about what she loves to do.
We prayed with her right there next to the stack of tires.
Our tire was fixed in about 20 minutes. As we paid our $8.50 bill,
we saw something in the eyes of the owner. Sadness… longing…
something. God had given us eyes to see.
I asked him, “How can we pray for you?” As you can imagine, he was a
bit surprised. But, then he told us that his daughter had recently
moved to Texas and he misses her terribly. We prayed for him and his
daughter.
I’m not a great “pray-er”. I often don’t know what words to say. To be honest, I don’t even really like prayer that much. But, I know that God DOES something when you pray.
A supernatural interaction happens deep inside us when we pray
together. I saw the sad look in his eyes lighten and I saw a flash of
peace cross his face.
Emy said it best, “We all need to turn on our ‘pray-dar’ and be ready to pray whenever for whoever.” Ashley chimed in, “That was $8.50 well spent!” The prayers changed us too.
What would happen if we turned on their “pray-dar” each day. How
many people around us have longing in their eyes? How many people are
tired and worn-out? How many people have had their dreams trampled?
What can a 60-second, heart-felt prayer do in the lives of those around us? In us?
