It was about 2:00 AM at my home in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. I awoke uneasily for no apparent reason. There were no dogs barking, no thunderstorms, or kids fussing. However, I did feel the urgent need to pray for a member of my church family, a fellow Sabbath School teacher. He was a long, long way from home on an Air Force tour in Saudi Arabia. I didn’t have any details, but I got out of bed and knelt on my knees pleading for Divine protection for this friend. After awhile I went back to sleep somewhat satisfied that I had done what I could and left the rest in God’s hands.
Dateline as told by my friend, Stephen W.: Prince Sultan Air Base, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Sunday, 20 April 1997. The mission day started later than usual. Instead of 0230 hours local time for “Showtime,” the 20-person crew arrived at operations at 0800 hours local time. Banker’s hours they called it. You go to work in sunshine and get “home” (a tent in the desert in this case) in sunshine the same day. The crew ran through the normal routine of reading the information for the day, attending the intelligence briefing and pre-mission briefing, and then waiting a little to board the bus to the plane. Again, all normal actions: You go to your work station, check out and test the oxygen equipment, check and test the communications nets, sit down, strap in, and wait. You wait until the pilots have done all their pre-flight checks and the engines are started. Then they taxi out, do that pilot stuff, and fly away. Normally!
This day would be different. They did all the aforementioned “stuff” and did indeed take off at 10:04 hours local time as scheduled. “Normal” went away. Instead of “operations normal” as we climbed into the weather, the pilot’s aircraft attitude display indicator froze in the 15 degrees of climb and 30 degrees of bank position. At this point in time it should have indicated “climbing straight away” from the field. The weather ceiling (clouds) started at 9,000 feet above the ground and went up to 15-20,000 feet. The co-pilots instruments indicated the “climbing straight ahead” scenario. But which was correct – the pilots or the co-pilots? The pilots agreed that it was the co-pilots, but they didn’t want (and couldn’t have) flight instruments that far out of sync with each other and be comfortable! The “in-flight emergency (IFE) call was made to the tower and the “emergency approach to a landing” plan was discussed and acted upon. As a precaution, the base crash-net was activated, and other aircraft were placed in holding orbits to keep the field clear – just in case! Small comfort that was to the crew! The return and landing were, however, uneventful. No big deal, eh? Well, at the time they thought exactly that, perhaps wrongly. I knew somehow God had intervened.
There is eight hours difference in time from Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia to Omaha, Nebraska. Saudi is eight hours ahead on the day, so…. You do the math and the word “coincidence” may come to mind. But you will spend a lot of fruitless time trying to convince at least one Air Force NCO (now retired) of it who flew on a very short mission from Prince Sultan Air Base, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that day.
When Steve returned to our church a few months later after his tour had ended, I told him about the extreme burden I had to pray for him and mentioned the date, Sunday, April 20th. He was amazed and grateful that the Lord had awakened me up in the middle of the night and impressed me to pray for him. Events could have been different for this 20-person crew. There could have been a knock on the door of their loved ones stating that their service to our country was so admirable but had ended in tragedy. Steve believed that because of my prayer God had directly intervened in these circumstances, and it was no coincidence that his life (and the lives of others) was saved. Together we both bowed our heads in a prayer of thanksgiving with Ephesians 3:20 coming to mind: “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.”
Have you ever had a burden from the Lord to pray for someone? When He wakes you up in the middle of the night are you annoyed and try to go back to sleep? Do you get up to get a drink of water, turn on the TV/computer/iPad, or make something to eat? Or do you realize that it is a moment to ask the Lord what it is He wants you to do? For whom should I pray, Lord? It may not be a plane about to crash but a marriage that is falling apart. Maybe it is a friend or loved one who is desperate and about to lose their faith or take their life. Is it a sick child, a lonely neighbor, a lost soul? Only God knows, and He is asking a human agent to be awakened to the need to pray.
When Jesus was on their earth, he experienced the world as it really was – full of Satanic angels preying on human beings to inflict as much misery and pain as possible. He saw the sick and dying, the possessed and obsessed, the desperate and the needy. He spent many, many solitary nights in the hills praying to His Father for Himself and others. In John Chapter 17:9-11, 15 we read a beautiful prayer of intercession that Jesus speaks for His disciples:
“I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are…I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.”
Isn’t it with joy that we rejoice in this prayer of Jesus! He cared enough for His followers that He acted upon this burden to pray for them (and us) and ask for His Father’s help. And He is now asking us to do the same.
Ellen White writes in the Review & Herald, March 24, 1903, par 3:
“Jesus Christ is constantly interceding for sinners. Those who co-operate with him must do a work which corresponds to that which He is doing in Heaven. Jesus has opened the door of heaven for us, and we may make intercession at the throne of grace, lifting up holy hands without wrath or doubting, presenting before God those for whom we are laboring. And by faith we may see heaven opened, and the glorified Son of God, the High Priest of our salvation, pleading for sinners.”
As believers in the end-times, we need to be fully engaged in Christ’s mission. The winds of strife are being let loose and Satan is inflicting all kinds of hardship. Our tour of duty is outlined in our orders and pre-mission intelligence briefing in Matthew 28:19 – “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” When our “normal” goes away and we are awakened to the burden to pray for others, Christ is depending on His Crew to act. We may not understand all the information about the situation. Indicators in our thoughts may conflict and we are unsure. But we arise to our duty to pray casting out a safety net for others. And the God of our Lord Jesus Christ is glorified in the incredible answers He supplies. His character of love is revealed. Lives which would perish are saved.
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Karen M. Phillips is happily married to her husband, John, and enjoys spending time with her children and grandchildren. She is a Human Resources Manager, an ASI Mid-America Officer, and a Bible teacher. Together they support their world-wide ministry – HeReturns. She writes from Omaha, Nebraska, USA.