March 19, 2007
By Kent d Curry

 

            It’s 4 a.m.
            “Daddy, I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
            It’s 4 a.m. and I am very awake.
I ask if he’s stood over the toilet. Yes. But he doesn’t feel so good.
“Well, then let’s go . . .”
            I get out of bed. He climbs into bed--and promptly throws up. I scramble him into the bathroom. While he finishes retching, I wet a wash rag, turn on the light, and start cleaning up.
            When it subsides, he speaks dreaded words, “Daddy, will you pray for me?”
            It’s 4 a.m., a scientifically proven low-on-faith hour. My mind is not with God’s. Still, I agree.
            As he leans over the toilet I pray without feeling or inflection whatever tired words tumble from my mind, though I do think to include a scripture about healing.
“I feel better already!” he exclaims. There is no color in his face.
            It’s 4 a.m.
I explain everyone feels better right after they’ve emptied their stomach--then it usually gets worse. I might as well have told him, “God didn’t answer that prayer, you just think He did.”
I tuck him in. He feels even better. My stomach feels queasy. Maybe I’ve contracted whatever he has.
It’s 4 a.m. Anything’s possible.
He wakes up at 7:10 a.m. per usual, talking excitedly. Soon he’s motoring around the house. He is fine. He was healed.
I still feel numb.
Jesus said, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me…” (Matthew 19:14). Proclaiming a prayer as ineffectual is a form of forbidding, yet Jesus also shared that it only takes “Faith as a grain of mustard seed” (Matthew 17:20) for Him to act. Scripture says nothing about the pray-er feeling powerful, anointed, or awake. It says pray in faith. Maybe the faith just has to be in the one being prayed for. Maybe I should just obey and pray.
Even at 4 a.m.

 

ninetyandnine.com

 

© 2007, Kent d Curry

 

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Kent d Curry is an executive editor at ninetyandnine.com.