Prayer Changes Things

This past Sunday, Sevilla Chapel, which is the church that I have had the privilege to plant and pastor, had its service on the beach. We had five members who wanted to be baptized, and we thought that the lake would be the best place to do so. For the record, we have nothing against baptism tanks, but the imagery of an outdoor baptism at a natural body of water screamed a “reenactment” of the New Testament baptisms. Everyone was elated by the idea, so as a church based in St. Catharines, Ontario, we gathered and worshipped at the closest location, Sunset Beach.

 The day was certainly memorable, but so were the hours leading up to it. The day before it had been raining quite heavily, with Environment Canada issuing a heavy rain warning coupled with a special weather statement. The forecast looked like a 70% probability of a total Sunday washout. You could imagine our dismay. That evening, after consulting with the elders, the decision was made to plow ahead and trust in God’s providence. If we needed to pivot last minute, then we would do so. But as we all know too well, forecasts are not set in stone, they can often be a bust. Well, just prior to going to bed, I sat with my two eldest boys, Matthias and Timothy who are five and three respectively, and I said that we were going to pray. What would we pray for? That God would change the weather. While the rain pounded on the roof, we asked that God would make the rain go away. We wanted to worship God as a church in public, we wanted to proclaim the gospel publicly, and we wanted others to see the decisions that five of our members had made to follow Jesus and be baptized. All of this was in service to God. As far as we could see, our request was for all the right reasons. I recalled Andrew P. Sandlin’s book, Prayer Changes Things. Too often we reformed folk surrender too easily to the events of our world, thinking that we are just passengers on a predetermined ride. We forget that God wants His children to pray (Matt. 7:7; Jn. 14:13; 1 Thess. 5:16-18), and that He wants His children to practice faith (Matt. 17:20). This was one such opportunity to put our faith into practice. If it so happened that Sunday was going to be a total washout, then God, in His providence, had allowed it. Well, what a surprise we had in the morning. The ground was wet, but there was not a cloud in the sky! It was bright sunshine. And the forecast, which was a total washout twelve hours prior, had changed to cloudy with some breaks of sun. God had answered our prayers! (And I know that we were not the only ones praying!)