What the world calls ‘luck’, Christians call ‘providence’. What unbelievers consider coincidence, in many cases, believers deem to be answered prayer. We know with absolute certainty that God hears and answers every prayer. It may not always seem apparent to us the manner in which it is answered, but the scriptures teach that this is so, so on that promise we can be sure.
There are some great anecdotes on answered prayer and I hope over the next little while to post some of them. These should be encouragements to us that we can know that we pray to a God who hears, and delights to answer us. Here is a beautiful account of Charles Spurgeon and a prayer of his that was answered. Not only was it Mr. Spurgeon who prayed, but it was also one of his previously printed sermons that was the means God used to answer his prayer.
Some two years ago a poor woman, accompanied by two of her neighbours, came to my vestry in deep distress. Her husband had fled the country; in her sorrow she went to the house of God, and something I said in the sermon made her think I was personally familiar with her case. Of course I had known nothing about her. It was a general illustration that fitted a particular case. She told me her story, and a very sad one it was.
I said, “There is nothing that we can do but to kneel down and cry to the Lord for the immediate conversion of your husband.” We knelt down, and I prayed that the Lord would touch the heart of the deserter, convert his soul, and bring him back to his home. When we rose from our knees I said to the poor woman, “Do not fret about the matter. I feel sure your husband will come home; and that he will yet become connected with our church.”
She went away, and I forgot all about it. Some months after, she reappeared with her neighbours and a man whom she introduced to me as her husband. He had indeed come back, and he had returned a converted man. On making inquiry and comparing notes, we found that the very day on which we had prayed for his conversion he, being at that time on board a ship far away on the sea, stumbled most unexpectedly upon a stray copy of one of my sermons. He read it. The truth went to his heart. He repented and sought the Lord, and as soon as possible he returned to his wife and to his daily calling. He was admitted a member, and last Monday his wife, who up to that time had not been a member, was also received among us.
That woman does not doubt the power of prayer. All the infidels in the world could not shake her conviction that there is a God that answereth prayer. I should be the most irrational creature in the world if, with a life every day of which is full of experiences so remarkable, I entertained the slightest doubt on the subject.
-Taken from C.H. Spurgeon: His Life and Ministry by Jesse Page, 1903, pp. 146-147.
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