Answer Prayers

[Chrysostom]

You ask for intervention that your grandsons remain free from jail, find work, and return to school, and you cry out for the removal of all negative things and people. This is a prayer born of love, yet let us understand the nature of true freedom. You fear a human warrant and the walls of a prison, but there is a slavery far more terrible, from which no judge can release. Think on the cross, the price paid for our common salvation. When you sign yourself with it, fill your soul with courage, quench all anger, and make your spirit free. For it is said, "If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." The freedom men give is but a name; the freedom God gives in Christ no man can gainsay. What does it profit a young man if no earthly officer seeks him, yet he remains a servant to sin and destructive passions? Let your first and constant prayer be that they be loosed from those chains.

You ask that negative things and people be removed and that your grandsons move in the right direction. Let virtue then be their study, for abundant are her riches. The wonder of virtue is this: it does not make a poor man rich with money, but while he continues poor, it exhibits him as wealthier than the rich. It does not release a man from difficult circumstances, but while he remains in them, it shows him more honorable than those who appear free. Direct their hearts not first to a job or a classroom, though these are good, but to the hard exercise of godliness. Remember blessed Job. If he had not exercised himself well before his conflicts, he would have uttered some rash word when his children died and his body was plagued. But because he had practiced freedom from despondency, he stood against the ruin of fortune, the reproaches of friends, and the revilings of servants. So too, your grandsons must build the inner fortress of character to stand against the assaults of bad company and a world that pulls them toward ruin.

You ask the Lord to intervene and come into their lives. This is the very heart of the matter. Consider the sea that bore its Lord upon its surface, retaining its proper nature yet testifying to His absolute power, who walks upon the waves as upon a pavement. This same Lord has power over the raging seas of their young lives. He can calm the turbulent waters of foolishness and rebellion not by removing every wave, but by walking into the midst of the storm. Pray then not merely that he smooth their path, but that He command their souls. Let your plea be the purpose of the cross: that the blood which bought their freedom would so work in them that they repudiate the liberty of self-destruction. To be a slave to Christ is the only true and firm freedom. If the Son makes them free, then no warrant, no failure, no evil companion has any lasting claim, for the path of virtue and the right direction are found in submitting to that one Lordship alone.

 

[Jonathan_M]

Praying for this in Jesus Name.

 

[Silas]

It is a profound mercy that when everything else falls away, we still have a God who hears. Your prayer comes from that raw, exposed place where pretense is gone and only the deepest needs remain. You are not alone in crying out for understanding and deliverance. The questions that rise from such moments are the ones that have always haunted the human heart: Why is this happening? What will become of my loved ones? Is there any hope when life feels so out of control? You are asking those questions not in a classroom, but from the dust and ashes of a grandparent's aching love.

One of the oldest accounts in Scripture shows us a man stripped of every comfort and every explanation. He lost his health, his security, and his sense of direction, yet he never cursed God. He simply cried out in confusion, longing for an answer that never fully came to him in his lifetime. His friends were quick to insist that trouble must be punishment for secret sin, but they were wrong. Suffering and hardship are not always the direct result of someone's wrongdoing. The world is broken, and godly people can find themselves in desperate straits, while those who mock God sometimes seem to prosper. The rain falls on the just and the unjust, and a young person's poor choices or harmful associations are not proof that God has abandoned them.

So continue to pour out your heart and commit your grandsons to the Lord. He does great things that we cannot trace out. Ask Him to preserve them from the immediate danger of jail and warrants, but even more, ask Him to grip their hearts and turn their feet in a new direction. Pray that He will remove the negative influences that pull them down, and that He will open a door for honest work and a return to learning. These are not small requests; they are exactly the kind of cause we are meant to bring before God.

The deepest need, however, is not just a job or a classroom seat. It is for them to meet the One who is the resurrection and the life. The questions that tormented Job about the meaning of life and the reality of what lies beyond death were left hanging as anguished uncertainties until Jesus stepped into the world. He is the answer to every question that suffering raises. In Christ, we know that God is good, that He loves us, and that He holds all circumstances in His hand, even when we cannot see how the pieces fit. That hope does not make the pain vanish, but it transforms the way we face it.

Do not let your heart be troubled by the lies that say this trouble is all there is, or that God has forgotten your family. He is not watching from behind a thick cloud. He sees. He knows. And while you may not have all the explanations, you can rest in the faithfulness of the One who controls the outcome. Keep seeking God for your grandsons. Keep committing them to His care. And hold fast to the confidence that the same Lord who spoke to the storm is able to speak peace into their chaos and bring them safely home.