"...The earnest prayer of a righteous man has great power and wonderful results."--James 5:16.

Sometimes life offers little hope, and when hope is gone, only despair remains. If life seems against you, don't blame God---seek him! When we focus our thoughts on God, our hope is restored. " ...But oh, the joys of those who put their trust in him!"-- Psalms 2:12. I suppose we don't ask, because we don't believe that God is intimately concerned with every detail of our life. Yet we couldn't be more mistaken. My husband took the following scripture to heart and below you will read the results of asking and believing. "Ask, and it will be given what you ask for. Seek, and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened. For everyone who asks receives. Anyone who seeks finds. If only you will knock, the door will open."--- Matthew 7:7-8.

We had a Foster daughter who was diagnosed with Asthma at two months of age. She was put on medication that made her legs convulse involuntarily (hyperactivity). I tried to administer the medication only when it was necessary, although she wheezed daily. Just a quick aside here, one night at about two a.m. I had a severe cough and couldn't stop. With no cough suppressant available, I took 2 tsp. of the baby's medicine thinking it would help. I stopped coughing, but shook for hours. Now I weigh approximately thirteen times more than a two-month-old and I only increased the dosage by four times as much to account for that. Please take my word for it, hyperactivity is involuntary. Upon hearing of my experience with the medication, my husband took it upon himself to ask the Lord to heal Angela. Each night for six months he prayed over her. At every check-up the doctor would grimly announce that he knew it was asthma, but needed six months of follow-up to declare it chronic. In her eight months of life, the doctor confirmed his suspicion. Immediately after, the Lord answered my husband's prayers and she was healed. Angela remained asthma-free the rest of the 18 months she lived with us, and according to her dad she is still free, just before her second birthday.

The second example involves Daniel, a three-and-a-half-year-old cocaine and alcohol foster child. Like many foster children, Daniel was born into the system and never spent a day with his birth parents. He came to live with us on his first birthday from another Christian foster home. Born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), Daniel is small and fragile, just now growing into size two clothing and not yet potty-trained. He did not begin speaking until after his third birthday, although he clearly understood most of what we said. He wasn't a particularly likable child and seemed to attract rejection. "Beware that you don't look down upon a single one of these little children. For I tell you that in heaven their angels have constant access to my Father."--Matthew 18:10. I was honestly guilty of not loving Daniel, as a matter of fact, I could hardly tolerate him. He looked so much like Jazzman that it was scary. And I had so much guilt because I had felt that we had failed Jazzman. I begged God to give me love for the child and tried hard not to show my indifference to him. He was mentally slow, more like an 18-month-old than a three-year-old.

One day, while in prayer about other things, the Lord spoke to me and said, "If you accept the label of FAS, there is a demon that will hide behind it and always remain." The key here was two-fold, don't accept the label because it would cripple the child. Also, don't knowingly give place to a demon in your household. Since I began to pray according to that revelation, we have seen leaps and bounds of development in Daniel. God has done such a work in our hearts and the child’s life that we are now in the process of adopting him. Truly a miracle! He now almost never stops talking, and shows signs of above-average intelligence. We held no formal "deliverance" session, and in the beginning I didn't even pray in the same room he was in. I just prayed simple prayers such as, "Lord I pray that Your will be done in Daniel's life. I pray that you would bless him and mature him. In Jesus name I pray that any foul spirit that would try to come against him would be bound. Amen." Now each night Daniel looks forward to when his dad anoints him with oil and prays a prayer of blessing and protection over him. The changes in the child have been remarkable.

Joshua knew the power of prayer, it is recorded in Joshua 10:14. "There had never been such a day before, and there has never been another since, when the Lord stopped the sun and moon--all because of the prayers of one man."

Solomon prayed, "And may these words of my prayer be constantly before Him day and night, so that He helps me and all of Israel in accordance with our daily needs."--I Kings 8:59. Solomon used the word prayer, singular, he was asking that one prayer remain before the Lord. We have evidence that this is possible because in Revelation several references are made to vials and golden bowls of the prayers of God's people. So although I believe it is important to continue in prayer, our prayers our never forgotten by the Father.

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