Prayer

I'm reading a book, Before Amen, by Max Lucado
and I just had to share this:


On July 28, 2008, this square-jawed cowboy was preparing for his fourth ride at Graham Texas calf roping when he fell off his horse.  He was dead before he hit the ground. Cardiac arrest. A friend ran to his side, put his hand under Freddy's head, and began to pray. A veteran firefighter administered CPR and prayed as he pressed Freddy's chest.  The friend asked everyone to pray, and the firefighter said he could hear people praying all around him. Soon the arena was a sanctuary of sorts, and Freddie was on the altar. He didn't respond.  Forty-five minutes after he collapsed an ambulance raced them to the nearest hospital. In route his heart began to rally.
Freddie as it turns out, saw the prayers of the people.  "I was with the Lord," he remembers.  He describes a feeling of love - more love than anyone could imagine.  He remembers a feeling of perfect peace, the kind of piece a child feels being held and rocked by his mother.  Freddy remembers seeing the prayers.  "God allowed me to see the prayers that came up for me.  It started with one bolt of light and then there and then there were two bolts of light and three.  Then there was 10.  And then there was like hundreds, and then there were thousands of bolts of light.  Each one of those bolts of light was a prayer that someone had sent up for me.  And when there got to be so many bolts of light it exploded into the brightest light..... That's when God sent me back."
     The apostle John remembered something similar. In his vision of heaven John saw the prayers of the Saints ascending with incense into the presence of God. Then an angel took the sensor, "filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the earth and there were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake."
Behold the power of prayer.  You ask God for help, and Bam! Fire falls to the earth. You lift your concerns to heaven, and turbulence happens!  Noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake.
Jesus interceded for his enemies while hanging on the cross.
"Father forgive them; they don't know what they're doing"  Luke 23:34   Jesus, even Jesus, left his enemies in God's hands.
Shouldn't we do the same you're never more like Jesus then when you pray for others.  Pray for those you love; pray for those you don't.  Pray for this hurting world.