PRAYERS
REWARDED
By Ada
Nicholson Brownell
What makes you feel God will
answer your prayer? Who do you think you are?
These thoughts came recently
as I prayed specifically for something I urgently needed. Immediately I was
humbled. I knew I wasn’t worthy of the wonderful things God already had given
me, let alone more. A great heaviness covered me.
Only a few days later I
noticed the latter part of a familiar Scripture verse. Formerly I’d always paid
most attention to the first part: “But without faith it is impossible to please
him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is …” But now the rest of
the verse caught my attention: “…and that he is the rewarder of them that
diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
Those words came alive to me
that day. I realized when we pray, believing God for the answer, we are
pleasing Him—not imposing on Him! To please God we must believe that He will
reward all who diligently seek Him, and we do that when we pray in faith.
Because I am from a family
that believes in prayer, I saw the rewards of diligent prayer early in life. We
saw one relative after another surrender his life to God in answer to prayer.
We also saw physical healings.
Years ago my mother had a growth come on her eye, and it rapidly increased in
size. Two of my aunts, Marge Weekley and Dorothy Howard, fasted and prayed 3
days. At the end of the week the growth fell off.
My mom’s brother, Willie
Shepherd, became blind after his one good eye hemorrhaged following cataract
surgery. He went to one of the best eye doctors in Colorado and was told
nothing could be done for him.
“You might try prayer,” his
hometown doctor finally told Willie’s wife.
When we went to see Uncle
Willie, he chatted with us awhile and in the course of the conversation he
wanted to show us something someone had given him. He felt around on the table
in front of him, then in exasperation cried, “I can’t see!”
We sent word to the family to
pray. The progress seemed slow, but one day Uncle Willie called me on the
phone. The doctor had just taken the bandages off and Willie was crying.
“I can see my coffee cup,” he
choked out.
Only a few months later his
vision was completely restored, and he got his driver’s license back.
Prayer has brought me through
many crises. My sister Erma Sparks found her daughter Pam had numerous lumps
under her arms. Doctors said the lumps could indicate any one of several
diseases, most of them fatal.
But God answer prayer, and no
serious trouble developed.
My sister, Joan, had a large
mole removed from her body which was identified as being a malignancy of the
worst kind. Surgeons expected the cancer to spread and take her life.
When it was diagnosed, Joan
had three daughters, one kindergarten age. “How can die and leave my girls?”
she cried.
She had radical surgery, and
her legs and other parts of her body constantly ached. She was consumed by
fear, until one day she reached out to God and believed He was healing her. The
cancer never returned, and she lived fifty-some years after that.
The prayer of faith still
raises the sick, as we’re told in James 5:15. Not everyone is healed, but
anyone who asks those who pray about the answers to prayer they’ve received
will hear plenty of amazing testimonies, as I have heard from so many.
My children and grandchildren
all have testimonies of miraculous answers to prayer.
God still is the rewarder of
those who earnestly seek Him (Hebrews 11:6)
What
prayer can do
By Ada Nicholson Brownell
Released Dec. 17, 2017
E-BOOK AND PAPERBACK AVAILABLE.
Pray. God
answers.
True testimonies of events where God intervened.
Ennis Surratt, known as the “meanest man in town,” changed
in a moment. John Feliciano, blinded in an industrial accident, sees instantly.
Marjorie Eager’s family escapes death when God stops a forest fire. A mother
prays on her deathbed for her sons to meet her in heaven, and years later God
grabs Gary Hilgers out of sin and turns him around. More amazing chapters
originally published in The Pentecostal
Evangel, enough for every week of the year, with three bonuses. By here:
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