Answered Prayer

Exodus 7:7

“Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh.”

The cold war started right after WWII ended in 1945. The Soviet behemoth was a threat to the world with the new found stature and company it kept with the victors of WWII. The treat of nuclear war was a real thing now and the world had its eye on Russia being the aggressor, wanting to take a page out of Hitler’s book on nation building. This cold war would last until 1989 when the Berlin wall was torn down after the famous speech by Reagan. 44 years of the threat of nuclear war was over. When it started, you can be assured many mom’s prayed that war would never start again and for the treat of nuclear war to stop. If you were a new mother in your 20’s when WWII ended you would be in your 70’s when the threat stopped.

Exodus 7:6 says that Moses and Aaron were eighty and eighty three years old when they stood before Pharaoh. A short time later the Israelites would be released from Egypt. An answered prayer for a nation that had been enslaved for over 400 years. We are not told when the Israelites started to pray for deliverance but are sure of the departure. If we focus in on one character of this epic story we will find a mother who gave her son over to the Lord when he was only 3 months old. His name is Moses. The Bible tells us that Moses was cared for by his own mother for the first few years of his life and he was to be given to Pharaoh’s daughter to be raised in the palace.

No doubt Moses’ mother prayed for her son. Who wouldn’t? Even more so when she gave him away as a 2 or 3 year old little boy, she could have prayed for the Lord to use him in a mighty way, to protect him and to guide him. I will bet she heard that he had to run into the desert after killing the Egyptian, she probably cried over the fact that she may never see her son again. More prayers for his safety and guidance. As time went on, Moses’ mother became old and we don’t hear about her ever again. But her prayers, well, they were answered some eighty years later when Aaron and Moses go before Pharaoh as old men. These two men would go down in history as patriarchs for Israelites and it all started when they were in their 80’s.

You might be asking yourself if prayer really works. Does God answer us at all? I don’t see anything happening so I guess He is busy, forgot about me, or even worse, he chose not to answer my prayers at all. We are all on God’s timing, not our own. We are supposed to walk by faith and not by sight putting our trust in the Father’s plans.

Moses’ mother might not have even been alive to see the prayers for her son answered, but they were. If you put yourself in the story and you didn’t know what was coming next, it would take some huge faith to believe God is going to really lead you out of Egypt. Further more, it would take some mammoth prayers and belief that God is going to answer you. In the movie with Charlton Heston as Moses, the camera pans on one old man just kneeing and praising the Lord as the Israelites leave Egypt, he looks like he is in his 90’s. He is so awed by what he is seeing all he can do it praise the Lord.

I cannot tell you when your prayers will be answered. But I can tell you that we serve a great and awesome God who promises to answer our prayers. The Bible tells us that prayer changes the heart of God. It did for Abraham when he asked God to spear the city for sake of a few righteous people. Prayer works. I just heard a man’s story of his mother calling him after 29 years of separation to ask for forgiveness for the things she did all those years ago.

You don’t have to go very far to see the hand of God at work. God commanded Moses to make the people tell the story of exodus from Egypt and how the mighty hand of God moved. Go back and recall the times a prayer was answered and thank the Lord. He is still answering prayer, but it is us that somehow are blinded and cannot see His hand at work. Never give up on prayer because he is working even though we don’t see it.

Father, open our eyes to your hand at work around us. Give us huge faith to pray huge prayers for impossible things that only your hand can do. Amen.