'Who Was Praying for Me Tuesday Night?'

The Brooklyn Tabernacle has been built from the beginning not on the Sunday services but on the Tuesday night prayer meeting.

In the 1990s Pastor Jim Cymbala's oldest daughter Chrissy was far from God, and had been for two and half years.

In Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, Jim tells the story of what happened. 

February came. One cold Tuesday night during the prayer meeting, I talked from Acts 4 about the church boldly calling on God in the face of persecution. We entered into a time of prayer, everyone reaching out to the Lord in concert together.

An usher handed me a note. A young women whom I felt to be spiritually sensitive had written: Pastor Cymbala, I feel impressed that we should stop the meeting and all pray for your daughter. 

I hesitated. Was it right to change to flow of the service and focus on my personal need?

Yet something in the note seemed to ring true. In a few minutes I picked up the microphone and told the congregation what had just happened. "The truth of the matter," I said, "although I haven't talked much about it, is that my daughter is very far from God these days. She thinks up is down, and down is up; dark is light, and light is dark. But I know God can break through to her, and so I'm going to ask Pastor Boekstaaf to lead us in praying for Chrissy. Let's all join hands across the sanctuary."

As my associate began to lead the people, I stood behind him with my hand on his back. My tear ducts had run dry, but I prayed as best I knew.

To describe what happened in the next minutes, I can only employ a metaphor: The church turned into a labor room. The sounds of women giving birth are not pleasant, but the results are wonderful. Paul knew this when he wrote, "My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you . . ." (Gal. 4:19).

There arose a groaning, a sense of desperate determination, as if to say, "Satan, you will not have this girl. Take your hands off her, she's coming back!" I was overwhelmed. The force of that vast throng calling on God almost literally knocked me over.

When I got home that night, Carol was waiting up for me. We sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee, and I said, "It's over."

"What's over?" she wondered.

"It's over with Chrissy. You would have had to be in the prayer meeting tonight. I tell you, if there's a God in heaven, this whole nightmare is finally over." I described what had taken place.

Thirty-two hours later, on Thursday morning, as I was shaving, Carol suddenly burst through the door, her eyes wide. "Go downstairs!" she blurted. "Chrissy's here."

"Chrissy's here?"

"Yes, Go down!"

"But Carol--I--"

"Just go down," she urged, "It's you she wants to see."

I wiped off the shaving cream and headed down the stairs, my heart pounding. As I came around the corner, I saw my daughter on the kitchen floor, rocking on her hands and knees, sobbing. Cautiously I spoke to her name:

"Chrissy?"

She grabbed my pant leg and began pouring out her anguish. "Daddy, Daddy. I've sinned against God. I've sinned against myself. I've sinned against you and Mommy. Please forgive me."

My vision was clouded by tears I pulled her up from the floor and held her close as we cried together. Suddenly she drew back. "Daddy," she said with a start, "Who was praying for me? Who was praying for me?" Her voice was like that of a cross-examining attorney.

"What do you mean, Chrissy?"

"On Tuesday night, daddy--who was praying for me?" I didn't say anything, so she continued:

"In the middle of the night, God woke me up and showed me I was heading toward this abyss. There was no bottom to it--it scared me to death. I was so frightened. I realized how hard I've been, how wrong, how rebellious. But at the same time, it was like God wrapped his arms around me and held me tight. He kept me from sliding any farther as he said, I still love you. Daddy, tell me the truth--who was praying for me Tuesday night?"

Dressed in His Righteousness Alone

But I Will Be With You

Moses said, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?" But the Lord said, "But I will be with you . . . and I will be your mouth."

And Gideon said to him said, "Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house." But the Lord said to him, "But I will be with you."

Jeremiah said, "I don’t know how to talk! I'm only a youth." But the Lord said to him, "Do not say, 'I am only a youth'; Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you."

"And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

Because He Lives

Battling Bitterness by Grace

Robert Jones, biblical counseling professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, in his new and wise book Pursuing Peace, from a chapter entitled "Battling Bitterness by Grace":

There is nothing uglier than bitterness—that inner anger lodged deep in the heart, sometimes known only to the bitter person (and his all-seeing God). Bitterness is settled anger, the kind that not merely reacts to someone’s offense, but forms a more general and global animosity against the offender himself. Anger responds to an incident: “I’m angry about what you did.” Bitterness goes deeper to form an attitude—a settled stance or posture—against the perpetrator: “I’m bitter at you, because you are an evil person.” The incident becomes almost secondary.

With most hurts we encounter in our imperfect world, especially small ones, we learn to overlook the offense and forgive the offender. But occasionally we experience a major hurt—an offense that cuts deeply or turns our world upside down—that lingers in our minds and tempts us to become bitter. We might store that hurt in our heart, nurture it, and let it grow to the point where we look with hostility at the offender.

What hope do [we] have to escape the sorrow, slavery, and soul impoverishment that resentment brings? 

The answer is found in Jesus. Jesus understands. He is with us. He comes to us in our mistreatment and remains with us to help. He understands mistreatment as one who was sinned against severely. He has been there. The Scriptures tell us that he came to save his own people, but they did not receive him (John 1:11; Isa. 53:3).

Jesus was sinned against severely: mocked, taunted, punched, spit upon, abandoned, and crucified. This is the Jesus—the mistreated one—who is with us and who is able to help us handle our resentment and overcome our bitterness.

How? The answer is the gospel message of Jesus Christ.

In Ephesians 4:31, the apostle Paul calls us to “get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.” The antidote to bitterness? “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Eph. 4:32). This verse is the apostle’s strategy to battle the bitterness he warns against in the previous verse. He calls us to have our minds consciously controlled by God’s forgiveness through Jesus’s death on the cross. Grasping the mighty work of our incarnate, crucified, and risen Lord moves us to forgive others. 

--Robert Jones, Pursuing Peace: A Christian Guide to Handling our Conflicts (Crossway 2012), 138-39

Image credit, and a free downloadable PDF excerpt of the book, here.