Prayer Is Asking — Wesley Duewel

Prayer as Asking God for Blessings

And I want to emphasize today prayer. Now, in one of my books, the book Mighty Prevailing Prayer, I describe what I call, not in the Bible, in these exact words, but the truth is in the Bible, I call it levels of prayer.

And I want us to go further and further in prayer. Now, you may want to visualize in your own mind deeper and deeper. You just go deeper and deeper in prayer. Okay, fine, praise the Lord. Or maybe in your mind you think, oh no, we're going higher and higher and higher.

Praise the Lord, that's all right. And you believe more than you think actually. But we want to go to new levels of prayer. Anybody can pray. What did Jesus say? Children can ask. Every Christian can ask.

That's the essence of prayer. Asking and seeking for God's blessings. For the name of the world abounds and for God's people. One evening I was ill. My father called the family doctor. In those days, doctors made house calls.

He examined me, my father and mother. He says, Brother Dool, Westing has scarlet feet. And I have to quarantine your house. So I'll be here the first thing in the morning. And put the quarantine sign on your house.

And when that sign goes up, you will not be allowed to go out. If you're out, you will not be allowed to come in. If you want to carry on the ministry of your church, you have to get your things outside the house right now.

Anything you want to use in the next couple of weeks, you take out of the house tonight. I'll be here the first thing in the morning and put the government sign on the outside of the house. I had a fever.

I had the breaking out all over my body. Similar to smallpox. My father took a rope out to the garage and destroyed the rope. When I started carrying suits and shirts out, hang them up on the rope in the garage.

And some of his books, he put a cot downstairs for me so I could be there with my parents. She tucked me into bed. She said, Now listen, don't worry. Don't worry. We'll just trust Jesus. And prayed as she put me to sleep.

Childlike Prayer and Miraculous Healing

And asked Jesus to take care of me and touch me. Prayed, Now Jesus, heal me. And the roaches inside my throat were gone. My throat was gone. In just a little while, there was a knock on the kitchen door.

Well, he said, How? And he walked in. You see, Wesley, it pays to trust Jesus. Why? He said, It must be wonderful to have a faith like that. She said, No. It's wonderful to have a God like that. Amen.

Why? He said, I didn't know you had. No, there was a God. He said, I'm an agnostic. Here's the prayers. Even at that time, that year, I was taking care of a stroke and fever. God healed me. He said, He loved me.

And He loves everyone. I know that. But I asked Him in belief. Prayer. Children can get answers to prayer. Adults can get answers to prayer. I remember when my father was pastor in the church in Humboldt, Nebraska.

Jesus Help in a Moment of Crisis

And I was down. I was going to take us one night to a revival service in a nearby town. They invited a lady, a poor lady in our church. She washed clothes to help earn her living. A Mrs. McDonald. My mother sat in the back seat and my father said to me, Wesley, would you like to drive tonight?

Would I? Any chance to drive the car was a privilege to me in those days. So I drove the car. I had no experience driving into a long road with several curbs and bends. One place, the car began to slide sideways.

And I hit the steering wheel on ice before going exceedingly fast. But I felt the car sliding to the side. Mrs. McDonald in the back seat said, Jesus help. That's all she said. And just like that, the tires gripped the road.

The sliding stopped. We went right across the ice and back on the plain road again. Sliding was all over. Hallelujah. Jesus help. My mother was a praying woman. Oh, my mother had a real prayer life. My father was a Bible-believing praying preacher.

But neither one, as far as I heard, were praying. She said, Jesus help. And that's all she said. She prayed with God with two words. Sometimes prayer is that easy. In times in India, she said, sometimes God guided her to ask for things that she didn't see.

Why would I need that? She would obey the Lord and she would ask. And God would supply the need. And then a little later, several weeks later, suddenly she had a need for the very thing she had asked for and she had.

Praise God. She had found on different occasions that she was led to ask for things for which she didn't understand what the need was. And God answered her. And when the actual need arose, she was prepared.

Persistent Prayer and George Müller’s Faith

Asking is so simple. Oh, I want to urge you. Don't say, oh, I'm sort of weak. Yes, you are weak, but you ask. Asking Him. Talking to His friends in the world. By answering prayer. And He started taking in orphans.

He was a single young fellow, but He started taking in orphans and provide for them. And never tell a person what his need was. By the time he died, he was supporting more than 10 ,000 orphans. Plus, he was supporting about 100 missionaries.

Plus, he was sending money for the printing of Bibles and literature. George Buhler said, in my journals, I have the record of more than 50 ,000 prayers that I asked. 50 ,000 that were answered. Unsafe prayers.

But he was safe. To see it. Someone's will. George Buhler.