Friday, August 11, 2006


Matthew Broderick back in the day... Posted by Picasa

Old-school Movies and Real-time Answers

A couple of weeks ago Christy and I were flipping channels and found “War Games.” Do you remember that Matthew Broderick classic from the 80’s? It’s a movie set in the extreme paranoia of the Cold War in which a high school computer hacker finds his way into what he thinks is a computer game but is really a simulation program for nuclear war. The kid signs into the ‘game’ as the Soviet Union and initiates a nuclear missile strike on the U.S. What he doesn’t know is that U.S. military defense tracking systems show eight incoming Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles from Russia! This kid playing around on his computer had no idea what his hacking was setting in motion…

I think that prayer is like “War Games” for lots of us. We don’t rely on prayer… we don’t pray any where near as much as we ought because when it gets right down to it, we don’t really know what prayer is and what it does. Do you know what actually happens when you pray? David did… In Psalm 18 he said, “In my distress I called out to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From His temple He heard my voice; my cry came before Him, into His ears.” First thing’s first… when you cry out to Him, God hears you! But look what happens next… “Smoke rose from His nostrils; consuming fire came from His mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under His feet. He mounted the cherubim and flew; He soared on the wings of the wind…” David goes on to say that God thundered form heaven blasting his enemies with lightning like arrows and then rescued him because God delighted in him. Isn’t that awesome?! Did you know all that was going on when you pray?

This morning I was reading Nehemiah 2 about the exiled Israelites who got to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the wall surrounding the city. Well, before they got to go back, they had to get permission from their captors. It just so happened that King Artaxerxes’ cupbearer was Nehemiah who had been praying that the exiles would get a chance to go back… He showed up at work one day holding the King’s cup but looking long in the face because he was thinking about Jerusalem and how it was in ruins… The King looked at Nehemiah and said, “Hey Mr. Grumpy Gils! What’s your problem today?” Nehemiah told him about Jerusalem and how its destruction tore him up so much. Then the King said, “What is it you want?” Chapter 2, verse 4 says, “Then I prayed to the God of heaven, and I answered the king…”

Did you catch that? He had about 2 nano-seconds to shoot up a little pistol prayer to heaven and then he had to tell the King what he wanted, and God heard him! He thundered down from heaven, riding angels and clouds like a couple of water skis and gave Nehemiah the answer he wanted! He got to go home and rebuild the city he loved. It doesn’t matter if you pray for days on end or just two seconds… He hears you, and He busts open the sky to come down and rescue you right when you need Him. Cry out to Him, He’s waiting…

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