Prayers Answered!

“And Jesus spoke to them, saying,  ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’” (Matthew 28:18)

   V.  Raymond Edman is the author of one of the best books my wife and I have read for a while entitled “They Found the Secret.” It is a collection of stories about twenty men and women of God who learned how to “walk humbly with their God” and live extraordinary lives in the service of the Savior. In the epilogue the author also tells an awesome story of answered prayer in his life.

   Private Edman was a soldier in the 28^thInfantry Regiment of the 1^stInfantry Division during World War One. At the conclusion of the Armistice to end the war his division was ordered to march across the remainder of France, through Belgium and Luxembourg into the Rhineland of Germany to serve as an occupation force. It was many long days of marching in the snow, rain and mud to reach their objective in the state of Westphalia. Private Edman was totally exhausted and sick by the time his company, company B, arrived at an old run-down, unheated building, a former Russian POW facility, that would be their new home.  

   A few days before Christmas orders came down for his company to transfer five soldiers to C Company for an unknown reason. No one knew where C Company was and no one wanted to go and find out. Private Edman definitely did not want to go but, of course, his was the first name the First Sergeant called out and he was put in charge. Here is how he described what happened next:

   “While the others began to roll their few belongings into their packs, I slipped into an adjacent room, just a tiny little place that had been a sort of tavern when used by the Russians. There alone I knelt by one of the benches to pray, saying: ‘Lord, I cannot go. I am so ill, so worn, with such a sore throat and fever that I cannot go. And I do not know how far away C Company may be stationed!’

“Then for the first time in my Christian life, as a young believer in the Lord Jesus, I was aware of a Presence beside me; nothing I could see with the outer eye or touch with hand, and yet I knew He was there and that He said to me, ‘I will go with you.’

   “I arose and with the strength and indefinable calmness that had come with the Presence, I shouldered my pack, took my little detail, got directions to C Company from the Sergeant Major at battalion headquarters, and all that afternoon we trudged on through deep snow. By nightfall we were in the village of Boden, and billeted in a home, not a prison barracks. The good mother in the home noticed that I was ill and insisted that I sleep in a feather bed upstairs rather than in the unheated room assigned to us soldiers. A feather bed, and a mothers care, and most of all, the inward assurance that the Lord Jesus by His Spirit was with me!” (They Found the Secret by V. Raymond Edman, pp 177-178

    My son Adam had a very similar experience when attending the U.S. Army’s Ranger school in December 2003. It was two days prior to the end of the first phase of training at Ft. Benning, GA. He was exhausted at the end of a long day of walking through the wooded training area and his Achilles tendon of the right foot was in such pain that he could not walk. They had a short break in a patrol base before they were to move out on another mission. If he could not walk they would kick him out of the course or recycle him back to do the entire first phase again. Neither were options he liked. He knelt next to a tree and prayed for God to give him the strength to go on. A few minutes later the order was given to put on rucksacks and move out. Adam slowly got to his feet, adjusted his equipment load, and took the first step. Then he took another. There was no pain of any kind! He finished the phase and the next two phases and was in only 30% of the ranger class that finished the course and earned the coveted Ranger Tab. 

What about you? Who do you turn to when you don’t have the strength to carry on? There is really no one else who can help you to take the next step. He may have a nice heated room and a feather bed for you also!

Pray

1.    Lord You said that You would be with us until the end of the age and You have given us the Holy Spirit to walk with us each and every day. Thank You for giving us all that we need to make it in this life and in the one to come.  

2.    Thank You that You loved us enough to die on that cross for our sins and that Your Spirit lives within us if we have accepted You as our Lord and Savior.

3.    Help me to lean on You for all my needs because You alone know how lead me down the path I need to walk today.