Christmas is coming and many of us are looking for special gifts to give to those in our family or circle of loved ones. This tradition of gift-giving at Christmas comes from the inspiration of God’s great gift to us of His son, Jesus. Giving is certainly an honorable tradition if we don’t place the gifts before our thankfulness for what He has done. Maybe that is the reason Thanksgiving is celebrated the month before Christmas.
Recently I had to have a root canal performed on a failing tooth. The procedure went fine but I ended up with a lingering sagging face hours after the Novocain had worn off. This caused a typical Bell’s palsy drooping of the right side of my face, which happened to occur on the same night as the Ocean City Community Thanksgiving Service. I went to the service looking not anything like my usual self and ran into many of the people from my church who, upon seeing the problem, promised to pray for my recovery.
I love this group of living saints as they did what they said they would do and they prayed for me. The Bible tells us, “Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”
Is it not simply marvelous that the prayers of those living in right standing with God our Father are powerful and effective and will be heard and bring healing? Praise God that His people take prayer seriously.
Truthfully, I don’t need just anyone throwing up a prayer to God on my behalf. I want only the prayers of the saints that believe in the Savior, His promise of salvation, and who are living out that belief in their daily lives. Those are the prayers I covet for healing and help and they indeed were heard and answered.
During the service one of the pastors spoke of the need to be thankful in all things – for the good and not so good – in our lives. I was pondering this thought because I, too, believe God always has my best interests in His heart. I knew I would need to be thankful for whatever the outcome because God would be with me even if the palsy didn’t dissipate.
As we were singing thanks to our God (and this was eight hours after the procedure) I could feel more movement in the side of my face and I knew that prayers were being lifted up all around me. When people say they can feel your prayers you can believe them because this was what was happening.
Prayer is our communication with God to express our praise and thankfulness, to seek forgiveness from our sins, and to put forth our requests for others and ourselves.
Just as our best friends enjoy hearing from us our Father loves to hear from us. In fact, we are told to pray without ceasing. We are to be in constant communication with God and thankfully I know many were praying for me as they were also listening to the Thanksgiving message.
By the time the service ended and we gathered for a time of dessert and fellowship, friends were seeing a slight improvement around my eye. What a great God we have and what a wonderful group of prayer warriors surrounded me that evening. Those of us who have been given the great gift of salvation soon find that we cannot out-give our God.
By the next day most of the palsy had retreated. That certainly made for an extra thankful Thanksgiving for me as I was able to share in the meal with our guests.
What a blessing it is to have faithful, righteous prayer warriors attending to the needs of the church and her members. This is exactly how we in the church are to respond to the needs of each other.
As we begin the season of Advent and prepare for the celebration of the birth of Jesus let us remember why this one birth is so important. Without the saving grace of Jesus we could never be reconciled with our Creator and Father God. We would be lost forever.
Because Jesus was willing to sacrifice His Holy seat next to the Father in heaven and come to earth as a baby, to live and die in our place for our sin, we can be reunited with the Father now and forever more. This is why Jesus Christ is referred to as the greatest gift of all.
During the many activities we will be attending this season let us remember to give thanks to the very One who has given us the greatest gift of all.
ED. NOTE: Amy Patsch writes from Ocean City. Email her at writerGoodGod@gmail.com.
