I know many of you may not have a clue where I am going with this article based on the title, but please bear with me for a moment. I think you will be glad you did. Throughout my life I have not been the best person I could have been. I have lied, cheated, and stole along with a multitude of other things that I am sure I don’t have to mention in order to make my point (Most of which was done in my teenage years). Even though I have always tried to be a decent person, a lot of times our best efforts are just not going to be good enough to get the job done. We all fall short of where we should be.
I grew up in church in a very uncommitted way. I was there sometimes. I learn a little and I went on with my life but I never truly committed to the lifestyle change that comes with being a Christian. Well after many years of being a heathen, I finally committed my heart to God while I was at Fort Jackson during basic training. After that, I started going to church and began my infant walk with Jesus.
Now, that was only five short years ago. I am still a child in Christ, learning new things everyday. However, the point of my story comes from one specific event in my life. After returning home from Iraq, my wife, in conjunction with my church, decided to throw me a welcome home party. During this party, they put on a power point presentation with photos of me and all my buddies in Iraq while the song, “Somebody's praying me through” played in the background! After the presentation was over I got up and gave a short speech to the church. During the course of my speech I made the statement, “thank God somebody was praying me through.”
The other night on my way to work, I finally understood what I really meant when I made that statement over two years ago. So many times throughout my life, I have been behind the wheel and have royally messed things up. So many times I should have been killed, broken, imprisoned and destroyed. However, here I am today healthy, free, unbroken and not destroyed. I have a good life and a wonderful family. I have received blessing after blessing after blessing and I have only just recently started to feel like I even understand the true power of prayer.
I said all that to bring you back to this one basic point. Many times throughout my life I was messing things up just as fast as I could but I had people praying for me. When I was younger I had my grandmother praying for me. As I got older my wife and my church family started praying for me. I thank God that somebody was praying me through. Please don’t overlook the power of prayer, especially when you are praying for others. I know I have been prayed through many situations. Now, it may be up to you to pray someone else through something they can’t get themselves out of. Maybe you should stand in the gap for that friend or loved one and pray them through. They will appreciate it even if they don’t know you did it for them. God will honor you for it and you will receive your own blessings for being unselfish with your prayers. Try it and see how it turns out! As for me, Thank God somebody was praying me through when I wasn’t.
Matthew Hilley
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1 comment:
Matthew,
Stumbled across your blog and your link to Conservative Citizens of SC. Just a question for you... What's your beef with the ACLU? Just wondering as it's on your illustration, but you have no post on the issue.
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