By Andrew Greenhalgh, Life Group leader, Jubilee Church Wirral

Our family (except Julie, who took the picture!) in Zambia just after Eva recovered from Malaria. She was very pale and had lost a lot of weight, as well as her eyebrows and eyelashes.

Before I sat down to write this blog (which is late) (sorry), I prayed about what I should write about.

And I expected God to provide me with inspiration.

Now as I’ve been a Christian for many years and I’m fairly committed to being a Christian and taking an active part in my church, you might not find that fact very surprising.

But, until about two years ago, it’s not something I would have automatically done.

I don’t know why. I know God answers our prayers and that He hears us whenever we pray. Prayer is so important that even Jesus, the actual Son of God, does it (Luke 6:12: “Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.”)

So if Jesus prays when He actually IS God, it’s probably a good idea for me to do it too, right? Right.

So why did I have to remember to pray? Maybe because I was used to being able to provide for myself.

Until we went to Zambia. Now please forgive me if I’ve already talked about this or if you’re bored of hearing about our time in Zambia (I’m sure some of you are!) but I think I speak for Julie and myself when I say that our time spent out there changed our lives completely.

In Zambia, we HAD to rely on God. When we needed money for something – a water bill, a car, school fees – we had no way of earning it. So we prayed. And do you know what? God provided.

When we were fearful about our house being broken into and us being attacked (it happened to friends of ours), we prayed. Praise God, it never happened to us.

When we were fearful about Eva while she had malaria, we could do little else but pray. And she recovered.

Being in Zambia put us in positions where we had no choice but to rely on God. So that’s what we did.

Having to rely on God is the best thing that ever happened to me because it taught me that God does NOT abandon us and that He DOES provide. And that means the big things (enough work to come in, money to pay the mortgage, school places for our children), to the little things (what to write a blog about).

Do you rely on God completely?

Andrew Greenhalgh with his wife Julie