Testimonies
By JAY Wilber
many times do we
pray for healing,
finances or situations and ask God
to help? We do this every day, but
what is funny or actually sad is we
seem to be surprised when God
grants our prayers.
I have talked to many people
who say, “Can you believe it, we
prayed to God for healing and He
healed us,” or “We prayed for
finances and He provided the
money.” Why are we so surprised? I
think we fail to have faith involved
with the prayer. Scripture tells us
we need to have an effective
prayer life: to have faith and
believe in what we ask for.
How
Matthew 7:7-11 (NLT)
Effective Prayer
“Keep on asking, and you will
receive what you ask for. Keep on
seeking, and you will find. Keep
on knocking, and the door will be
opened to you. For everyone who
asks, receives. Everyone who
seeks, finds. And to everyone who
knocks, the door will be opened.
You parents—if your children
ask for a loaf of bread, do you
give them a stone instead? Or if
they ask for a fish, do you give
them a snake? Of course not! So
if you sinful people know how to
give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your heav-
enly Father give good gifts to
those who ask him.”
I would like to share an example
of an effective prayer that had
faith as its foundation.
Jim and Maryann from North
Dakota have a story to share.
Morgan's prayer:
October of 2015, in our kennel of
Alaskan Husky working sled dogs,
we were blessed with the arrival of
5 healthy puppies. Two of our
grandchildren Morgan, age 9 and
Jesse, age 6, were there shortly
after their arrival. Morgan and
Jesse were so interested in the
puppies and spent every waking
moment with them. This litters'
theme for names was going to be
cookies. Together, we all thought of
names of cookies and then voted
on the favorite ones. The names of
the 4 boys and one girl pup
became Spritz, Peanut, Chip, Oreo
and Cookie.
The pups were growing rapidly
and progressing well through the
winter and Morgan and Jesse were
able to visit and play with them a
few weekends throughout the win-
ter. Both kids always wanted to be
out with the pups.
In June of 2016, Morgan and
Jesse came for a week-long visit
after school was over. They were
looking forward to being on the
farm with us and spending time
with the puppies.
Just before the kids arrived, we
noticed something unusual was
happening to Oreo. Each day of
their visit, Oreos symptoms wors-
ened. He became stiff legged, was
showing signs of losing his balance
and sight. Eventually he had trou-
ble finding his food bowl and eat-
ing.
We had an experience with this
disease many years ago with a 6
month old pup that we were not
able to save. At that time the vet-
erinary was not able to identify the
disease. We even took the pup to
the research facility at the college
and they could not identify it either.
Since then the disease, known as
AHD (Alaskan Husky Disease) has
been studied more extensively. It is
very rare found only in Alaskan
Huskies and one other breed. At the
time of this writing, there have only
been two dogs known to survive it.
The symptoms would worsen until
the dog would lose all control of
balance and bodily function. We did
not expect that Oreo would survive
the disease.
When Morgan and Jesse arrived,
they spent much time with the
pups who are now 7 months old
and full of energy. After a couple of
days Morgan noticed that Oreo
wasn't doing so well and looked
odd. When she asked us what was
wrong, Mary Ann (Grandma) had to
tell her about the disease, how it
affects the brain and that there is
no known cure. She said that Oreo
may not live very much longer.
Morgan became very heart broken,
she quietly studied him and asked