“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land’ - 2 Chronicles 7:14 (NIV). 

Prayer can do amazing things. Once there was a certain church that went through an acrimonious split. Before it was a growing church with flourishing ministries spread across the city. But somewhere some members decided to walk out due to some issues, and the Pastor was forced to resign. This led many others who preferred the Pastor to storm out too. Before long the church had split into three congregations!

When people have been meeting regularly to fellowship they become like a family. A church split can be as devastating as a biological family that breaks up with brothers and sisters walking separate ways. It is a time of turmoil.

But just as the church was going through this turmoil, the elders did an amazing thing. They decided to set aside a time for prayer. For some months members were asked to drop by the church after work and participate in communal prayers. The elders encouraged fasting, just as well, during the day.

As members met, repented and cried out to the Lord,  this church was restored. The Lord led it miraculously to find a new Pastor; within no time he had turned it around into one of the fastest growing churches in the city. Of this success one elder later said, “we felt the split was the time to drop everything and turn to the Lord. This is how our church was saved.”

Once there was a time when “the Lord sent a plague on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell dead. And God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem” (1 Chronicles 21:14). However, the Lord had mercy upon Israel, because of the prayers of his servant David and the elders. “But as the angel was doing so, the Lord saw it and relented concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand” (vv 15).

In the midst of any turmoil, personal or national, the battle cry for all believers is to get out, fall on their knees, and cry out to the living God for mercy.

Prayer for today: Lord Father God of Abraham, maker of heaven and earth, today I fall facedown and cry out to you that through your mercy you restore anything amiss, this I pray in the Lord Jesus’s name!