RUN LIKE A CHAMPION

Prayer that Impacts Future Generations
The dear saintly lady had tears in her eyes as she told me her story. “My mother and father were arrested and sent to Siberian prisons,” she said. “I was a small child, and the authorities also put me on a train and sent me to a city in Siberia. I didn’t know anyone there and didn’t know what I would do. When the train arrived at the city, I disembarked, not knowing a single person.
“A lady walked up to me and asked if I needed help. She took me home with her and told me what had happened. She was an Orthodox Christian believer and had a dream the previous night that there was a small child who needed a home. She dreamed that the child would be at the train station. So, she came to the train station that next morning and found me. She raised me as her own child until I was grown. I returned to Ukraine when I was in my 20s. My mother was released from prison, and I saw her for the first time when I was in my mid-20s. My father died in prison. I never saw him again.”
I was overwhelmed with her incredible testimony. Can you imagine what her godly parents felt when they were sent to prison in Siberia because of their faith in Christ. Knowing what I know about believers in Eastern Europe during those trying times, I’m sure they must have prayed for their small daughter. I’m sure they prayed for God to take care of her and that He would one day use her for His glory.
Their prayers were certainly answered by the dream of the dear Orthodox Christian woman. But God did more than that. That dear lady is the wife of the superintendent of the Baptist and Evangelical Churches of the Chernovtsy region of Ukraine. God has used her tremendously among the women in the region. Even though people attempted to destroy the mother’s family and faith, they couldn’t. No person – no circumstance – no principality or power is a match for the prayers of godly parents.
Many parents feel they have lost control of their children. They feel that circumstances, friends, or injustice have robbed them of their children’s eternal future. But we must never forget that heaven is filled with the answers to prayers by godly moms and dads who’ve wept for their children.
Hannah was such a woman. She sought God for a child. The circumstances looked impossible. But God heard her prayers and answered her. She said, “As surely as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the LORD. I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of Him. So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD” (1 Samuel 1:26-28). God used Samuel in a mighty way. Hannah’s prayers affected that young child and ultimately, the future of the nation of Israel.
Sometimes it’s easier to believe God to touch the hearts of people that we’ve never met than it is to believe Him to touch our own children. That’s because we’re so intimately familiar with their circumstances. But we must do what Hannah did. She took her eyes off the situation and put them on God. She sought His face, and He answered her. A future generation was impacted because of her prayers and her tears. Will the next generation be impacted by your prayers and tears?