01/06/2024
Bumper stickers, and sometimes bumper snickers, we see them everywhere. Some make us think, others make us laugh, occasionally they fill us with introspection, but there are those that disappoint us too. I have heard Pastors comment on them in sermons by warning us not to have Christian bumper stickers on our cars and then lean out the car window shaking our fist (or worse) when someone cuts us off on the interstate. What are we telling the world around us about Jesus, and His impact on our life when we don’t offer them prayer when they are hurting? We are meant to live our faith as Jesus did His, and be representative of it. What are we showing the world through our lives?
“Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
2 Corinthians 5:20 ESV
One morning I was driving to work and was behind a fairly new red pickup truck. Like many trucks it sat a little higher than my car, but on his back window I could just barely see the top of a bumper sticker; it read ”NEED PRAYER?” I smiled and wondered what the rest would say, so I let him pull forward a bit so that I could read the bottom lines... They were two telephone numbers. It was a letdown. I don’t know exactly what I expected, but it wasn’t to call someone. Maybe I thought it would say “Honk and let’s pull over”, or perhaps a line like “God Hears Them All”. There was just something missing, and it made me think of the punch line of an old joke I had heard; “Here’s a dime, call someone who cares.” I guess that if you weren’t going to take the time to pray with a person in need, then telling them to call someone who did care was pretty good advice.
I sat there in traffic and thought critically about the man in the truck, his bumper sticker, and my disappointment in it, until it finally dawned on me that I often wore that same bumper sticker on my own back. There have been many times when I saw someone who needed prayer, but didn’t take the time to stop them, put my arm around their shoulder and ask “would you like to pray about what’s troubling you?” Maybe I was telling them the same thing that I thought the man in the truck was telling me… “Call someone who cares.”
I remembered a very special evening during a Wednesday Night Service at church when a longtime friend, Tommy Scott, did this very thing by coming to me and praying for my daughter’s healing. The second line of Tommy’s sticker was shouting “LET’S PRAY!” We did, and my daughter was healed. A few minutes, a moment of caring, words of prayer from the heart… prayers travel the distance between us and God at lightning speed. When we are hurting, or in need, that distance between ourselves and God can seem so far, but when we begin to pray the words barely leave our mouth before they are heard. In fact, God hears them before we even vocalize them, but it is important for us to say them even though He ale=ready knows them… God has instructed us to do so.
“Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear.”
Isaiah 65:24 ESV
So, “NEED PRAYER?” It’s a bumper sticker that we as Christians should all have glued to our backs. Prayer is the very lifeline that connects us to God; it allows him to pull us in from rough seas, or to feed us physically and spiritually. Prayer is personal, and it is an act that joins us with the Father in incredibly wonderful ways. As for the bumper sticker on the truck that morning, I found out later that it was a prayer line number for a local Baptist church. Maybe telephone numbers are alright in certain situations after all. Who knows, we might actually recognize the person who picks up the receiver when the prayer line is answered, but we will certainly know the voice of who we are ultimately be connected to.
Prayer:
Father, thank you for all those who pray for others who are in need. Thank you for hearing our spirit as we prepare to speak out in prayer to you. Thank you Lord for every invitation you present us to pray, and each person you bring into our lives to be prayed for. Strengthen us Lord, and give us the courage to offer prayer to others. Open our eyes to the fact that a lost soul might not appear to be saved when we pray for them, or when we care enough to ask them if they need prayer help, but you are at work in them. Help us to remain loving and joyful when Satan meets us at the door to someone’s heart and lashes out at us when we knock to extend a prayer to them. Don’t let us be discouraged when this happens because the soul who lives in that house hears us, and our care increases your presence, and reveals Satan to them for who he really is. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who loves us, walks with us, and talks with us in prayer closets around the world. Praised be your name Holy Father and may all the glory for every found soul be yours… this is my prayer… a prayer of worship, joy, and thanksgiving.
Rich Forbes