IS GOD LISTENING?
We waited anxiously at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Wash., while doctors performed what they said would be routine heart bypass surgery.
They said it would take 2-3 hours, but our anxiety grew as 4 hours passed, then 5, 6 and 7. Finally the surgeon came out. He still wasn’t done.
"If I had known what condition his heart was in, and how advanced his arterial disease, I would have never started," he said, even though he had told us previously that without surgery Dad might not live more than a few weeks. The doctor told us Dad had a 50:50 chance of surviving, and the look on his face said that was being optimistic.
The surgeon returned to surgery as loved ones shed tears and called friends and relatives to join us in prayer. Some were angry at God; some questioned their faith.
Only a year earlier my brother was diagnosed with terminal Lou Gehrig’s Disease. The night before entering the hospital, Dad said he really wanted to stay around to help my brother and his family through his ordeal.
As we waited, most proclaimed their faith, but some questioned the efficacy of prayer. Does it really work? If God’s will be done, what’s the point of praying? And if God does really care, why does he allow such bad things to happen to such good people?
I didn’t have all the answers, but I urged loved ones to trust God – whatever the outcome. He knows what’s best in the long run for everyone.
I also remembered from the Scriptures that even Jesus apparently did not just snap his fingers and get an immediate response from God. Before the most important events of his life, he would spend hours, if not days, seeking strength and inspiration from our Father in Heaven.
Before he started his three-year mission, Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness. Before he chose his 12 apostles, he was praying all night on a mountain. Before he walked on water, he had told his disciples to cross the sea in their ship while he went up the mountain to pray by himself.
When Jesus met with heavenly beings, including Moses and Elias, he took Peter, James and John with him up the Mount of Transfiguration, as it is now known, to spend the night with him in prayer. There they heard the thunderous voice of God proclaim the divinity of his Son.
And on the night before his crucifixion, Jesus took his disciples with him to the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, where he frequently went to be alone with God. Jesus prayed for strength as the sins of mankind fell upon his shoulders. And despite the comforting visit of an angel, blood dripped from his pours, so great was his pain.
If the Lamb of God had to spend hours in prayer to achieve the heavenly light and power he needed, surely we must learn to pray with all of our heart, with all of our mind, with all of our strength and with all of our might if we want to call down the powers of heaven.
I’ve had some exciting experiences with God when I’ve been willing to exert that kind of effort.
I testify that God does live, that he does hear our prayers, and that he will be as close to us as we will allow him to be. But in the same way that we don’t always give our children everything they want without any effort on their part, our Heavenly Father wants to see spiritual effort and commitment on our part, too.
By the way, Dad came back to us, talking about his experience on the other side of the veil. He chose to come back.
He might not have returned from that peaceful existence if he had known how painful his recovery would be. Except, he had a son who has since made that trip through the veil we call death. And Dad, I believe, was truly able to help my brother face what for most of us is still the unknown.