United Prayer



This abandoned church sits on a dusty county road. My ancestors were church members. Each Sunday, they’d hitch up their wagon, bundle up with blankets in the wintertime, and spend the morning in prayer, listen to a sermon, share a meal, and then head back home before the livestock needed tending.


As I’ve been seeing all the prayer requests for Ukraine—I’ve thought about this old church and my ancestors who were such prayer warriors—for their new homeland, for their family, and for one another. Life wasn’t easy, but they had freedom.

 

This week Dr. Jim Denison shared how prayer changed the course of World War II. The King of England called the people to pray together seven different times.

 

Here’s what happened:

 


The first National Day of Prayer was called on March 27, 1940 when 350,000 British soldiers were trapped at Dunkirk. In the week following, the English Channel was incredibly calm, allowing thousands of private boats and yachts to cross over to Dunkirk and help rescue 338,000 of the men. History records this as “the miracle of Dunkirk”. 


The second and third calls to prayer were in response to relentless Nazi air attacks. Afterwards, a small contingent of British Spitfires and Hurricanes amazingly shot down 180 Nazi bombers over Southeast England.

 


During the fourth National Day of Prayer, Britain was bracing for Hitler’s invasion. Call this another miracle, but a great earthquake caused mighty waves and gale force winds that blew Nazi ships eighty miles off course.

 

On the day after the fifth National Day of Prayer, the entire Italian fleet was sunk.

 

On the anniversary of the fourth year of the war, September 3, 1943, a sixth National Day of Prayer was called. That night, Italy surrendered to the allies and Mussolini, the Italian dictator, was murdered.

 

The final National Day of Prayer was in 1944 just prior to D-Day. The terrible weather improved just enough for the great invasion to proceed. Even U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower admitted, “If there was nothing else in my life to prove the existence of an Almighty and Merciful God, the events of the next twenty-four hours did it.”

 

Perhaps in this new century we aren’t as religious or as prayerful as we once were. But God still waits to hear our prayers. Evil is at work, let’s have united prayers and ask God to do some miracles for our Ukrainian brothers and sisters.



Lord, you have heard what the poor people want.
    Do what they ask, and listen to them.
18 Protect the orphans and put an end to suffering
    so they will no longer be afraid of evil people. Psalm 10:17-18


Photo Credits: Duncan Kidd (Dunkirk), John Adams (Spitfire) Max Kukurudziak (Ukrainian flag).

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