Lost Man Found and Answered Prayer

Ed Sutter, a friend of a member here, went missing Sunday morning. He left for his church at 9:30 and never showed up there, nor back at his home. At 88 and in poor health, his friends and family were very worried about him.

Sheriff’s deputies, search and rescue and observation planes looked for him Monday and Tuesday. Thoughts were that Ed went West, where he owns a vast extent of property. But he was not found. With temperatures well below freezing at night and not much above during the day, hope of finding him alive was growing thin.

Wednesday at noon the Senior’s Group gathered for lunch. Ed had joined his friend at these monthly lunches often for the last year or so, and his absence was on all our minds. I offered a prayer for the food and additional prayers for Ed, that he might be found alive. It felt a little awkward to pray for that. Reason dictated a man in his condition could not survive over 72 hours in conditions as we had.

But not ten minutes later his friend received a phone call. Ed was found in his car by a farmer, dehydrated and weak, but alive. He was being taken to the hospital in town.

It’s simply a miracle. Praise be to God!

The lesson I received from that is not to worry about reason and what seems impossible when praying. With God all things are possible. What’s more, this miracle was a great opportunity to see that we should never give up praying. Ed’s friend prayed day and night for good news, and I’m sure she prayed  much more than I prayed in the days preceding. She never gave up and God granted her prayer.

Obviously, this does not always happen. There are plenty of occasions were God’s people waiting years and years for Him to answer prayers. I’ve had more prayers answered with a “No” than anything else. But there are ones where there has been a profound and humbling “Yes.”

It doesn’t make sense to us. Why would we presume that God would tinker with things just for us? Isn’t intercessory prayer like this pretty manipulative? Doesn’t it treat God like a giant treasure-chest or like a magic hat?

I don’t know about that. What I do know is the great condescension of God that He would lend His ear to us at all. The great wonder that God even once would answer the prayer of us, His lowly creatures. That He would be one with us in Jesus Christ. In other words, if you are tempted to see prayer as beneath intelligent Christians–intelligent humans, and as manipulative, don’t blame us. The greater effrontery is that God deigns to actually listen to us!

Such it is. But prayer is a blessing, and a blessing not because sometimes we get what we want. It is not in having the King and Creator of All things visible and invisible pausing His divine ordering of every atom and isotope and particle to listen to the cries of we creatures of dust. The greatest blessing of prayer, the greater purpose of prayer is not in seeking stuff but in seeking Him.  It is to speak to Him, to bring our desires and sins and weakness to Him, to seek His will always, to conform ourselves to it. To empty ourselves of our self and be filled with Him and turned to others, created in His image. This is the greatest blessing of prayer.

Possibly Related posts:

1. A Prayer to Change Your Life
2. Begin with Prayer and See What Happens
3. “My Smokin’ Hot Wife”: the NASCAR Prayer
4. The Secret Eucharistic Prayer
5. When our Words are His Words