In our Gospel passage today, the disciples were trying to heal an extremely distressed boy; and while they failed to heal him, Jesus succeeded. In response to their question as to why they could not heal the boy and bring the demon out of him, Jesus answered, “This kind can come out only through prayer.” The suggestion is that the disciples were trying to heal this boy with their own power, but what was really needed to heal the boy was God’s power. So, if the disciples were to be channels of God’s healing power, they needed to pray more; they needed to be in greater communion with God if God was to work through them in a life-giving way.
In answer to their question, Jesus points to the power of prayer and the need for prayer if certain kinds of difficulties in life are to be resolved. Some situations in life are so much greater than us, so beyond our own resources to deal with them, that it is only prayer that will get us through them. I’m sure that on many different levels, we all know this from our own experience. When we are really between a rock and a hard place in our lives, we can discover that it is prayer that keeps us going when all else fails. When all our own efforts fail, it is the LORD who keeps us going in our prayerful connection with Him.+
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