Electricity will replace God.
The peasants should pray to it; in any case, they will
feel its effects long before they feel any effect from on high.

VLADIMIR LENIN

When I pray, coincidences happen. When I don’t, they don’t.

ARCHBISHOP WILLIAM TEMPLE

There was a time in my life when I hadn’t much use for prayer. “If I should die before I wake” was whispered without much heart in it. After all, I was six. What would I die of? A heart attack? Kidney failure? Hardening of the arteries? Then the day came when my older brother threatened to kill me. And the prayer was whispered with a little more conviction.

This is how it is with life. Our prayers mirror our level of desperation. As we age, more and more is taken out of our hands. As we watch earthly power slip from our grasp, we begin to look for power elsewhere.

I used to wonder how it was that really old and wrinkled people in their forties could pray so much. Now I’m beginning to understand that many of them were experiencing the family squeeze. They had parents and, if they prayed without ceasing, probably teenagers too.

That’s the stage at which we find ourselves. Our dear sons, who once grabbed on to our knees and rode around on our feet, are out who-knows-where with gorgeous girls their age who have learned to use lipstick. We wonder why the Bible does not mention Jesus during His teen years. Some believe it’s because His parents refused to talk about it.

One of the most profound things I’ve learned recently is to stop discussing my parenting problems with parents my own age. Parents who have children older than yours have something called perspective, an invaluable asset when you’re raising children who used to leave sharp toys on the stairs and are now making life decisions while their hormones rage. Parents of kids the same age as yours seldom admit to you that they stay awake at night worrying and praying and pulling out their hair. But older parents have nothing to lose by being honest. They smile and nod and say things like, “I know. I remember the same thing. It’ll be okay. Your hair will grow back. Some of it, at least.”

I am bolstered by these people, but mostly at the end of the day when I’m lying in bed and three children are in different cars being steered by boys who not so long ago were driving their tricycles through mud puddles, I pray.

And sometimes, on really good nights, God will spark my ADD into action, and I’ll remember stories of answered prayer, stories the most skeptical would at least find amusing.

Simple stories that give me hope.

Back when our kids wanted to travel in the same car as their parents, we journeyed three days to get to Iowa, where I was to address a family camp. I’ve discovered that the best way for a speaker to gain credibility at family camp is to leave his children at home, but ours have always come along. And I think it’s been comforting to other parents to watch them misbehave.

As we sat at dinner the first night, the children munching corn on the cob, the camp director, Earl Taylor, and his wife, Dede, told us a little about the camp. Located on 660 acres of wooded property in central Iowa, Hidden Acres had experienced significant growth the last few years. But with growth came the usual structural hurdles.

Most recently, the camp staff had been praying that God would supply enough money to build a sewer so that frightened campers would not have to hike past bears and wolves and hyenas to use the facilities in the middle of the night.

The staff prayed often.

Nothing happened.

Then one day a semitruck crept up the gravel road, and a gentleman climbed out. “Do you mind if I park my rig here?” he asked, pointing to a hayfield on the southern edge of camp.

Earl, as accommodating a Midwesterner as you’ll ever meet, said, “Sure.”

Soon the truck driver had another question. “We’re filming a little movie, and there are more of us. You know, trailers and some equipment. Oh…and helicopters, too. Is that okay?”

“No problem,” said Earl.

The crew was from a little studio out west called Warner Brothers, and they had a few more questions. They were shooting some scenes on a road west of camp. Could they scatter a little straw? Blow it around? “We’ll pay you to clean things up,” they promised.

Earl said sure.

Next a helicopter landed in the south field, and a bearded man by the name of Steven ducked out of it, along with his personal chef. He was producing a little film about a tornado. The crew called him Mr. Spielberg.

Warner Brothers stayed thirty-six hours on the property filming Twister. It took the camp staff three hours to clean up the road. Then they were asked to put all the trash back on the highway; the crew needed to shoot the scene again. Earl said, “No sweat.”

Before the trucks and helicopters departed, Earl was handed a check. One that made his mouth drop open and hang there awhile. It was written out for the exact amount they’d been praying for.

A friend rolls his eyes when I mention answered prayer because he is more educated than I and can put a voice to the “hows” of history. How could a God who answers prayer turn a deaf ear while Hitler murdered six million Jews and several million Christians? How could God watch Stalin kill sixty million without doing something? What about Lebanon and Baghdad and Hiroshima?

I don’t know quite how to respond. There is so much I don’t understand. But late at night I keep circling back to God’s obvious leading in my life. I have seen Him give joy when there is no plausible explanation for it. When I’m in the back of an ambulance holding the hand of my unconscious wife while nurses cast sideways glances at each other. And I have sensed the peace of knowing that my children are in His hands, even tonight, no matter who’s driving the car.

Earl agrees. Ask him if God answers prayer, and he’ll smile and tell you a story. And he’ll probably conclude it this way: “When I got that check, I knew what we’d build with it—and we’d do it in memory of Hollywood. They’ve built their share of sewers. Why not build one in their honor out here in Iowa?”