At the recent Empowered21 London Congress, one of the speakers made a statement which intrigued me, he said: “When we pray, coincidences happen, when we don’t, they don’t.” I was curious and wondered why he referred to answered prayers as coincidences?
I eventually realised that most of us tend to explain away God’s miracles as ‘coincidences’. You pray for a new job, and within a week you bump into an old classmate who’s looking for someone like you to fill a key position. Or maybe you prayed over a technical problem in your factory and later chanced upon an article in a misplaced engineering journal that not only addresses the exact problem, but also gives an ingenious solution. It could even be you giving a sizeable offering to a church project and later receiving an unexpected bonus from an investment made long ago. To one who’s lacking in faith, these situations are mere coincidences. Yet, the truth remains that our God is a prayer answering God, and He is always faithful. Remember His promise in Matthew 7:7-8 (NIV), “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
These verses tell us that miracles can occur in our everyday lives. God uses ordinary people to bring about extraordinary outcomes. So diligently look out for God’s answers to your prayers - they just may show up during your mundane daily tasks. Just like the Apostle Peter, who climbed out of his boat in faith and walked on water at Jesus’ invitation, we too can experience the power of God when we press in with faithful and tenacious prayer. God’s miracles are already happening, although they may be cleverly disguised as coincidences. As the psalmist said in Psalm 127:2 (NASB), “It is vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors; for He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.”
Bear in mind that “When we pray, coincidences happen, when we don’t, they don’t.”
- Senior Pastor Lawrence Khong