Prayer at Big Dawg Gym

I headed off to the gym this morning to try out a new routine. It's supposedly a program that cuts your workout time in half while providing the same or better benefits. I'm all for that. Now days the less time I can spend in the gym the better.

One of the guys struck up a conversation with me. We had seen each other in the gym before, but never carried on a conversation beyond "watz up". As the conversation continued I discovered that he attended a church I had been to a few times. His name is Jerry. He rides a Harley and does prison ministry. As we concluded our conversation I asked him to pray for a missionary friend who has left his family and it would appear the Christian faith.

I did a couple of more sets and Jerry came back over and said let me pray for him now. So right there in the Big Dawg Gym we had prayer meeting. Now let me tell you what didn't happen. There was no criticizing the poor missionary for not knowing better. There was no theological debate on whether the man was saved or not saved. There was no name calling like some might do. There was simply a humble powerful prayer offered in Jesus name that our brother would come back home, that his eyes would be open and that the attack of the enemy would be made of no effect, because of a great and mighty God who knows exactly where our brother is.

It was what I call a GRACE FILLED PRAYER. If there is anything our wayward brother needs right now it is grace. What is going on right now in this missionary's life sheds a whole new light for me on Ephesians 2:8 "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God". Could it possibly that the "not of yourselves" part means more than what I thought? Is is possible that the "gift of God" part is actually the faith of others on behalf of one who has fallen away.

I think of the faith of a mom who prayed for her son that God would open his eyes to the grace of God. I think of a campus minister who prayed for a rebellious military cadet and God broke that rebellion. I know because I was that man. Their prayers for me and the faith that they had became to me the "gift of God".

At the throne room of grace there is no place reserved for judgemental spirits. I am so thankful that us Big Dawgs have a Big God who humbles our hearts in the most unlikely places and causes us to understand what it truly means to be mighty men.

Well the workout wasn't any shorter today, but the impact was out of this world...

"For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come" 1 Timothy 4:8