Living Boldly for Christ: Daily Reflections on Faith, Prayer & Spiritual Life by David Hathaway
For many of us, prayer begins with the model Jesus gave when His disciples asked, "Lord, teach us to pray." Yet the issue is that too many believers never move beyond that initial step of the Lord’s Prayer. It is profoundly important – God miraculously revealed its depth to me while I was in prison – but we are called to go further. We must actively combine our prayers with faith and true belief.
While imprisoned for smuggling Bibles, David received a divine promise of miraculous release – a word confirmed through Psalm 35. Yet, seeing that promise fulfilled required persistent faith and prayer.
In Psalm 35:18, King David writes: “I will give You thanks in the great congregation.”
That was where faith truly came alive for me. Standing in that prison cell, I leapt to my feet and declared, “Lord, that’s the answer!” David spoke of giving thanks in a great congregation, and while it demanded immense faith to believe that for my own life, I embraced it wholeheartedly.
Answers to prayer are deeply intertwined with our faith. When Jesus descended from the Mount of Transfiguration, He found nine of His disciples unable to cast out a demon. When they asked why they had failed, Jesus pointed directly to their lack of faith, explaining that such breakthroughs require prayer and fasting. To see real answers to our prayers, we must maintain a positive posture of faith in both what we speak and how we pray.
In any relationship, if there is no communication, the relationship ceases to truly exist. When a husband and wife stop talking to one another, the marriage struggles. The same principle applies to our walk with God: if we do not talk to Him, we do not have an active relationship with Him. Prayer is not a ritual; it is a living relationship, a genuine conversation, and a way of relating directly to the Father.
This is the only occasion in Scripture where prayer is answered by a literal earthquake. I wish more of us would pray with that kind of faith and expectancy today. This was no routine prayer meeting – it was prayer that shook the earth, broke chains, and opened doors. That is the kind of praying the Church needs once again.
In this story, Jesus was asleep, a storm arose, so the disciples woke Him, ‘We’re all going to die, it’s the end of the world…’ But Jesus just got up, He bound the storm, the winds stopped, the boat was safe, nobody died – and when those strong fishermen saw the demonstration of the power that this Man had over the elements, they said, ‘What kind of Man do we have in the boat?’
Matthew 8:23 says, ‘Jesus entered into a ship... and behold there arose a great storm in the sea, so much that the ship was covered with the waves, but Jesus was asleep. His disciples woke Him, saying, ‘Lord, save us, we’re going to die!’ And He said, ‘Why are you so afraid, O you of little faith!’ Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea and there was a great calm. The men marvelled, and said, ‘What kind of Man is this?’’
So many people do not understand who God is. He is not just a great Being in Heaven. If unbelieving people try to draw pictures of God, often they liken Him to an old man with a beard. But God is not an old man, nor does He look like you, He can only be recognised by His actions! And God is not just in Heaven, He is everywhere
Isaiah 53:5 says Jesus was wounded for our sin, bruised for our iniquity and with His stripes we are healed. Matthew 8:16-17 says Jesus healed all that were sick to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah. So healing is to fulfil Bible prophecy! I talk about Bible prophecy, I write about it in Prophetic Vision magazine, but part of Bible prophecy is healing the sick
I love to see God heal people that the doctors cannot help! To me, the real miracles of healing are when doctors have tried to heal and failed, then God takes over and by a miracle does what the most expert of doctors cannot do. I have seen many people healed of broken bones and the effects of accidents, especially young people, and many other young ones born blind, deaf, crippled, where medical science can do nothing.
If you think like that, you will not be healed. No, just as God forgives sin, instantly, He wants to heal you, NOW! God loves you! When Jesus healed the blind man the religious leaders asked, ‘Who sinned, this man or his parents?’ Jesus said neither! If God were to punish us now for every sin or mistake, then every one of us would be dead, including me!
We’ve got to search for God and find Him right where we are! If you think my life as an evangelist is easy, I can disillusion you! Some people say they want to be like me, but if they knew the truth, they wouldn’t want to! When I had the lung cancer I had a very busy schedule – don’t ask me how much I fasted, how much I prayed. When you know you have only a short time to live, you learn how to pray!
If you want to meet with God, you don’t have to wait until you have done this or that. I would never have become an evangelist, never seen a miracle of healing if God had waited until I was perfect before He answered my prayers. I call on God, He deals with me where I am. That’s why I was healed, not because I was ‘holy’. What God looks at is the deep desire of your heart.
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