Ye Know Not How

Ye Know Not How


Jim Cymbala Senior Pastor at Brooklyn Tabernacle gives a wonderful testimony of unstructured prayer in the Assembly and a battle won.

The Church had given a stab at prayer meetings without formal teaching in services specially called. He and his wife Carol had come to the end of two and a half desperate years with a rebellious daughter fleeing the Church and any contact with Jesus or people of faith. The couple did not know where she was.

Early into one night of prayer a handwritten note was forwarded from a woman to the pastor. It said simply “I believe that the entire congregation is to go into prayer for the well-being of your daughter…and to do it now”. The writer signed her name.

Jim balked for a moment at the idea that the whole program should be turned over to Pastor’s particular problem. But he felt the Holy Spirit in it and he gulped and decided to give everyone more detail about his daughter. The room was respectful and silent, and quite rapidly a spirit of travail was released with numerous individuals speaking from the floor.

He would say in retrospect that there was an awesome sense of “birthing”. His own humble presentation evoked compassion.

And that is when Jesus arrives! Need plus humility plus compassion plus earnest prayer and supplication. (Do we not see in the prophecy of Zechariah a reference to the Spirit of grace and of supplications?)

The very next morning the phone call came:

“Mom…Dad. There’s a lot that I need to get straightened out. I’m coming home. Is that OK?”