PLEASE DON'T FAINT

PLEASE DON’T FAINT!

By Ada Nicholson Brownell

      Clara has always been a fainter. She passes out at the sight of blood. Once she fainted when she bumped her head on a door.

      Due to her habit of fainting, Clara is not much help in emergencies. When she was a teenager, she worked for her Uncle Matt and Aunt Marge. One day Matt broke his leg. Marge was away so Matt shouted for Clara to call a doctor. Clara, however, rushed to see what had happened. When she saw the broken leg, she fainted. Matt had to crawl to a phone and summon an ambulance himself—then try to help Clara!

      In the face of almost every crisis, Clara faints. After her marriage she and her family were camping on top of Grand Mesa near Grand Junction, Colo. Her son Dean had a heart murmur and in the middle of the night began breathing hard—gasping for breath.

Clara’s husband awakened her and said, “We’re going to have to take Dean down off this mountain. He can’t get his breath.”

She sat up, looked at Dean, and then lay back down. “I think I’m going to faint,” she said weakly.

Her husband laughed. “Don’t be silly; you can’t faint lying down.”

She did anyway.

Her fainting is the result of a depression in the action of the heart. This can be caused by cold, heat, hunger, mental shock, weakness, pain, or fright. As a consequence, the flow of blood to the brain is interrupted and temporary unconsciousness occurs.

Not many people suffer physical fainting as often as Clara--but in the church there are many “spiritual fainters.” The Bible reproves those who faint when the going gets a little rough. “If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small,” it says (Proverbs 24:10).

When trouble comes into our lives, we don’t need to faint. If we wait on God in prayer, He will renew our strength so that we can “mount up with wings as eagles,” and “run and not be weary,” and “walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:29-31).

A preacher’s wife was ill and not expected to live. The minister became discouraged and seemed to have no more heart for his church work. Instead of helping, his flock deserted him. “I’m going to another church,” they said, and departed one by one.

Eventually the minister’s wife recovered and the preacher was able to throw himself into the work with his former zeal. But by that time the church was so depleted it could not meet the challenge of the community and that section of a metropolitan area was unreached. Victories were forfeited because the church members “fainted” when the going became hard.

But  “fainting” is not necessary. As long as God lives and answers prayer, there is a way to recover strength. Better still, there is a way to prevent “fainting.” For the Bible says, “Men ought always to pray and not to faint” (Luke 18:1).

Please don’t faint. Pray instead—and let God give you supernatural strength.

This encouragement article appeared in The Pentecostal Evangel years ago. Clara, my sister, is in heaven now, but the message it still appropriate for today. No matter what our talent or ministry, we should not be weary in well doing because we will reap if we faint not (Galatians 6:9).

Incidentally, Clara laughed and loved that she starred in this article, but she didn't faint so much in the later part of her life.. -- Ada

You can connect with Ada Nicholson Brownell's Amazon book page Here