Maybe it doesn’t sound very nice to pray for someone to become utterly miserable. I’d like to tell you about a time, though, when it was the best and kindest prayer that could be prayed.

A close friend of mine had been believing for her husband to be saved for over fourteen years. She held to a promise she felt God had given her from Acts 11:14; “…you will be saved, you and all your household.” But when?

Finally, this guy’s life began to fall apart. His confidence in himself was shaken and he was hopeless and unhappy. My friend has a high gift of compassion so she came to me in tears and told me how bad things were. She wanted me to pray for him because she couldn’t stand to see him so miserable.

“Ha!” I said, “Let’s pray instead for him to become MORE miserable.” And so we did. We prayed for God to heap up misery upon him until he would cry out “what must I do to be saved?” Well that’s exactly what happened. Once he reached crisis stage he swallowed his pride and came to church. After several weeks a particular sermon zinged his heart and he fairly ran to the altar at the end of service. He wept in a heap on the floor for nearly two hours as we watched and rejoiced.

Mark still teases me to this day about how I prayed for him to be miserable. Yet he is grateful. Lately I’ve targeted another person with this type of prayer. He better watch out! How about you? Do you know someone who could benefit from the prayer to get more miserable?