Many people ask, “What makes ENLACE different?” While there may be a variety of unique qualities about ENLACE’s methodology and approach, I think a more pertinent question might be “what makes the difference in ENLACE’s ministry?” Every Monday morning at the ENLACE office in San Salvador all of the staff and volunteers come together for a time of prayer followed by a devotional reflection. In January, ENLACE director, Ron Bueno, started the year with a series of devotionals entitled “La Diferencia” or “The Difference.” Over the next few months we’d like to share some of these devotionals with you as Ron explains “La Diferencia” for ENLACE.
David McGee, Director of Communications
Part 3: Prayer Transforms Our Lives and the World
by Ron Bueno, ENLACE Executive Director
In Mark 9:14-29 we read a perplexing story. Jesus had just returned from being in God’s presence on the Mount of Transfiguration to Jerusalem. He finds a crowd surrounding his disciples and a man who had brought his child to be healed from an evil spirit. The disciples had been unable to heal the boy. Jesus asked the man about the boy’s illness and whether he had faith that God could heal him. The father said yes and Jesus healed the boy. Later, when Jesus is alone with his disciples, they ask him why, if they had already been given the authority to heal and cast out demons (Mark 3:14-15), they were still unable to heal the boy. Jesus replies to his disciples bewilderment by saying, “This kind can come out only by prayer.” In effect, Jesus uses this event as a moment to explain to his disciples that they needed to hear God’s voice and know his will in order to be able to heal with power.
Jesus’ ministry of healing, forgiving and restoring the marginalized and lost to a right relationship with God was defined by hearing and obeying God’s will in prayer (see Mark 1:35, 6:46; Luke 5:16, 6:12). In John 5, Jesus states that everything he did was a direct result of seeing and hearing what his Father did and said. To Jesus, as evident in the rest of the Bible, prayer produces two main things: 1) New life in us and 2) Transformation in the world.
Sincere prayer transforms our lives: Richard Foster states, “to pray is to change.” Prayer brings us into the heart of God. The more we know the character and love of God for us the more we recognize our need for God and desire to be more like Christ. Prayer will change us and in the process will focus our attention on God’s desires so that we might intercede successfully for others.
Sincere prayer focuses on understanding God’s heart and desire for his world: The more we seek to know and share God’s mind and heart for his world, the more we can ask him to fulfill his plan in and through us (James 4:3; 1 John 3:22, 5:14, Acts 6:4, 10:9). We begin to see how God sees his children and yearns to bring them close to him. We begin to see how God sees the hurting and lonely and to hear his call to bring healing and comfort through our words and actions. We begin to see the amazing future God has for his world and strive to be a part of his plan to restore all creation to himself.
As Jesus taught his disciples in this incredible story, he teaches us today. I pray that God will teach us to listen to and obey his voice with faith and compassion so that we might be used powerfully to transform this world.
