Inspiration
My Father’s Prayers
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. James 5:16
I
’ve heard my father say many prayers over the years. As a
PK (preacher’s kid), going to church was par for the course
and hearing my father pray from the pulpit of the Morning Star
Baptist Church was not a rare occurrence. It was a weekly event.
I heard him pray at wedding ceremonies, asking for God’s
blessings upon the couple uniting. I heard him pray at baby dedications asking God’s blessings upon a new life. I heard him pray
at funerals as he lay to rest parishioners at the end of their earthly
lives.
But the two prayers of my father that probably impacted my life
the most were never really prayed in church. One of them I heard
almost every day. One of them I don’t think I ever heard him say
out loud to me, but I know he prayed it. How do I know? He
told me so. Because it was the same prayer that his father prayed
for him and the prayer that he encourages others to pray for their
children.
Before meals as we sat at the kitchen table to eat, my father
always said, “The Lord will provide.” I remember some days as
he sat at the table he seemed tired. Now that I am older I know
where that weariness came from. It was the weariness of carrying
the problems of his congregation, the load of praying for others,
being an under shepherd to God’s people. It was the weight of
carrying people’s concerns about their children, jobs, relationships and problems on his shoulder.
As a pastor, I saw my father sacrifice for others, those who
attended our church and those who didn’t. He went to the
schools and fought for a quality education for children because
he knew that education would open doors of opportunity. He
paid people’s bills out of his own pocket, knowing he would
never see the money again. He woke up in the middle of the
night to see about others and was there to comfort people at the
most tragic and trying times of their lives. He prayed for and
fought at school board meetings, the city council and corporate
board rooms.
But when he retired, after years of standing up for others, nobody stood up for him when he was forced to stop teaching his
noonday bible study and moved out of the church office of the
church he helped to build and pastored for almost four decades.
“The Lord will provide.”
I couldn’t have understood it then, the pressure to compromise
his integrity and sell out the people. The political powers that be
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The Well Magazine Fall/Winter 2013
that ran our town at the time and even other preachers told my
father if you want your kids to go to college, you have to cow tow
to the powers that be. But my father trusted in His heavenly Father and said I’d rather my kids be dummies than to lose my integrity.
“The Lord will provide.”
And God did provide for us. I went to college and studied
abroad twice and my parents didn’t have to pay a dime for my
tuition or board. My brother graduated from college and law
school. And my father kept speaking the truth to power, even
when some said he should just be quiet.
My father celebrated his 80th birthday this year. The older H