I recently watched a short, 4 part series on Pureflix called The Prayer Box. It was about a little boy with a sister who had cancer. Their mom was always at the hospital with her, and so he had to manage a lot without her.
He went to church one day and went to the front to pray for her sister and also write down his prayer and put it into the little box at the podium. When he was leaving church, he realized he forgot his jacket at the front when he had been praying. He went back inside and to his surprise he saw the pastor throwing out all of the prayers from the prayer box…
Shortly after he wanted to get a job so that he didn’t have to rely so much on his mom getting milk or anything since he knew she was so busy with his sister being sick… And so he went to the church and got a job cleaning it up. Within the cleaning duties, he has to clean out the prayer box. But instead of throwing the prayers away, he reads them and helps answer the ones he can help answer… And so his journey begins. He does it out of selfish reasons: believing that he will get God’s attention and in doing so God will heal his little sister… But God was using him…
Fast forward to his mom finding out about this and she tells him he needs to fess up to what he has been doing. Now here is where I’d like to add my opinion… While the mom and pastor made it seem like this child had lied to everyone by answering their prayers in secret and thus making them believe it was God… I don’t like how they portrayed it. Because in all honesty… Everything that happens – good and bad – is an act of God.
They made the child think he had done wrong, but he was following his calling from God… (Whether it was out of selfish ambition or not)
One prayer he had answered was giving a birthday gift to a little boy. He went shopping and found a baseball glove. At the church service afterwards, the mom stood up and shared the gift they had received.
“Whoever this was from, it’s like they knew exactly what my little boy wanted.”
Did he know exactly what he wanted? No. But God did. And He put that answer in this kids heart.
And so, to shame this boy into thinking he was doing wrong all that time is absurd. Because sometimes God works through people to answer people’s prayers! Whether the people He works through are known or not.
We must – MUST – be aware of all that happens around us. God answers our prayers in the most mysterious of ways.
We must never – NEVER – allow others to shame us into believing we are doing wrong if we want to be unknown when helping to answer another’s prayers.
God is mysterious. That’s what keeps us on our toes.
Stay alert. You just never know when He’s going to show up next!