Her Goggle Man Scare

One evening years ago when our daughter Arla was about two years old she was playing on the patio behind our house. Suddenly I heard her cry, and she came in terrified.

“Goggle-man, Mommy, goggle-man,” she sobbed. I didn’t know what goggle-man meant, but I understood that some man had frightened her. (Years later she remembered him as a man on a motorcycle behind our back fence.)

When my husband came home, he asked, “Is everything all right? Coming home tonight I had the feeling that you were in danger.”

I told him about the goggle-man and then we recalled discovering that the chain on our back gate had been cut that week. Did someone plan to harm our daughter?

We put the children to bed and then knelt to pray. We had to have God’s protection even if it meant praying all night. Praying all night was not necessary, however, for praying earnestly we soon received an assurance that all would be well. Perhaps the rest God brought to my over-anxious mind was as much a miracle as the safety of our daughter He also provided. The debilitating fears that can follow such incidents were simply not there for either my daughter or me.

Although the term “praying through” is not in the Bible, the concept is found in the definition of faith: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). It is seeing with our spiritual eyes the evidence not yet visible with our physical eyes. Faith includes the evidence or the inner knowledge that our prayer is answered.

Dear Lord, help us to be desperate enough to pray until we know You have heard and will answer our request.

“The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results” (James 5:16).