Super Bowl XLII Sunday is a day I will remember—and one that taught me an important lesson about answered prayer.
On Feb. 3, 2008, when I wanted to watch the game between the New York Giants and New England Patriots, I was stuck on a plane flying from Orlando to Chicago. I had attended an important conference in Florida, so I had to fly home at bowl time. Since we had a 45-minute stopover in Atlanta and with every TV in the terminal set to the game, I got to watch a bit and estimated that when I made it to Chicago’s Midway, I could see most of the fourth quarter. But as fate would have it, a blizzard hit, and we were stuck circling the airport until we were running out of fuel and had to head for Detroit.
Frustrated, I started pondering Super Bowl realities. The New England Patriots and coach Bill Belichick, who were fined $250,000 and $500,000, respectively, were the favorites to win the game and close out a perfect 19-0 season. As I thought about the best season of all time going to these proven cheaters, I considered a biblical proverb, “The LORD detests dishonest scales,” that is, cheaters (Prov. 11:1a, NIV). Stuck in my circling plane, I started to get angry but also spontaneously began to pray.
I don’t know why I did this. I don’t know if anyone else was praying for the same thing, and I don’t know for sure if the Lord responded to my prayer or not, but I prayed three things. I asked the Lord to cause the Patriots to lose the game, to have it happen in a way that He would clearly get the credit and that it would be in the news the next day that maybe New England lost because they were cheaters. In the book More Than Just the Catch (Charisma House), God is unequivocally given the credit for the extraordinary events that transpired in the last 73 seconds of the game.
If God gets the glory for answered prayer and for the unforgettable helmet catch New York’s wide receiver David Tyree made, could it be possible that He would use Strategic Prayer Initiative and The 5y80 Objective to change our nation? See spiprayer.org to learn more, and click here to listen to the third episode of the strategic prayer series on Charisma Connection.
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