Big prayer dare

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. –2 Chronicles 7:14 (NIV)
 
A couple friends of mine turned me on to an idea for a big prayer this week. What if we woke up Easter morning and the Coronavirus was gone? Not slowed, not waiting for existing cases to resolve, but GONE. What if it happened time zone by time zone, with the sun coming up on the day we celebrate our Savior's resurrection to find each nation and community around the globe healed and cleansed of this disease?
 
Many have been praying for revival, for God to show Himself in our time in some extraordinary way by accomplishing something completely unattainable and unexplainable by human means. Would stopping a pandemic overnight fill the bill? No one could deny it was a supernatural occurrence, and many around the world would attribute it to the hand of God.
 
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.  –Isaiah 43:19 (NIV)
 
I recognize the sovereignty of God, that He may have something else in mind. He could be using this season in less spectacular, but more far-reaching ways. Certainly, He has been teaching His children to love our neighbors in new and creative ways, ways that would have been seen as scarcely possible before. Perhaps you have noticed, as I have, that current conditions have inspired many to consider the spiritual significance of these events, even examining their own spiritual condition and re-assessing the value of prayer in public spaces.
 
I have seen, even on my own block, garage doors that were consistently lowered and locked being left up while neighbors stay outside (at a safe distance, of course) and watch for opportunities for some human interaction. Moms that were in the habit of avoiding eye contact now smile and wave and encourage their children to do the same. So I get it – our Father knows how to play the long game, and I’m definitely in on that if that’s what He’s up to.
 
You do not have because you do not ask God.  –James 4:2 (NIV)
 
On the other hand, what if He is just waiting for His people to ask? What if He has something in mind that is going to completely blow our socks off? And what if a happening so sudden, so complete, so good, and so awesome causes hearts and souls who have been wayward and wavering for so long to turn to Him and acknowledge Him as LORD?
 
"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." –Ephesians 3:20-21 (NIV)
 
It’s a big prayer. But we serve a big God. Are you in?