Sunday School: Specific Prayer

Be specific in prayer
Agnes Sanford’s experience
There was a small boy who had a leaky heart.
I had prayed for his healing with slight success. The heart was better but not well. So I questioned him concerning his knowledge of God.
“I know all about God,” he replied serenely. “God is in this room, only you can’t see Him ‘cause He’s ‘visible. And Jesus is in this room, only you can’t see Him ‘cause He’s ‘visible.
“Yes. Isn’t that funny?”
“Not to me, it isn’t.”

So I was reproved. Billy, I decided, knew about God with more profound simplicity than I did. His theology was quite sufficient for his seven years. It remained only for me to teach him how to make his knowledge of God work for the healing of the heart.

“How about playing a little pretend game with me?” I said. “Pretend you’re a big guy going to high school and you’re on the football squad. Shut your eyes and see yourself holding the ball and running ahead of the others. ‘Look at that guy!’ the other kids will say. ‘Just look at him run!
Boy, he’s strong! I bet he’s got a strong heart!” Then you say ‘Thank you God, because that’s the way it’s going to be.’ Will you play that game every night, right after you say your going to bed prayer?”
I left Billy grinning but noncommittal.

A month later I returned. The mother had taken Billy to the doctor.
The doctor knew of the patient’s experiment with faith and was
delighted to pronounce the heart perfect.

“Have you been playing my pretend-game, Billy?” I asked the small seeker after truth.
The little boy’s face lit up with a delighted grin. “Sure have!” he cried.
He had played the game and found a profound reality. He had wrestled with God as his partner against the powers of destruction and had prevailed.
The will of God for him was not a
leaky heart, but health.

Important for your Sunday School, Devotions and Bible Study class.

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