Does God ever answer stupid prayers?
There are many things I appreciate and enjoy in the ISEED program, but in today’s story, I would like to highlight Masterlife, the class where we have scripture memorization, and the mentorship aspect of the internship.
One of the memory verses this month is John 15:13. Jesus being the greater and ultimate example of laying down one’s life for others, I have heard of many amazing stories of people who have sacrificed their lives for others and I had been trying to think about how that applied to me. I meet with my spiritual mentor every week, and among different things we do and talk about, there is Oswald Chambers’ famous devotional “My Utmost For His Highest”. Having in the back of my mind the thought of laying down my life for my friends, on a particular day, we read from the devotional and the title for that day was “SUBSTITUTION”. The devotion was of course about Jesus and His choosing to be sin so that we, sinners might be righteous before God.
From the substitution discussion, I remembered an incident that took place in College when I was a leader of a small international students’ fellowship group and one of my friends from that group got sick. She had a test the following day, but she had fever, pain all over her body and was shivering. I told her that I would pray for her, and I don’t know why I did it, but when I was praying for her I didn’t stop at where I ask God to heal her, but I also added that if He wants, I can take the sickness for her because unlike her, I had no test to prepare for. 
To my surprise, in a few hours, I started getting her symptoms and when I asked her how she was doing she said that she was all well! It became intense and having no memory of me being sick like that, I don’t remember if I even prayed, but I ended up going to the hospital at night. They took all possible exams and told me that I had no illness! Was it a coincidence? Was God teaching me substitution? After that, I kept wondering if it was God’s answer to that “substitution” prayer, and every time I would ask God something and get no answer, I would wonder why there was a quick answer to that particular prayer, which, by the way, I often consider to be stupid! Why would God answer such a prayer quicker than my other requests? I don’t know, Do you?
I may not know the answer to “If it was God’s answer, why didn’t my friend get well and I stay well too?,” but despite my misfortune, one thing I cherish from that experience is that I got to learn that, “stupid” or not, selfless prayers are powerful. I pray that God would help me to practice and understand more the concept of selflessness as I serve others, Would you pray for me too? Thank you!