“Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus” (Acts 4:29-30).

God’s plans have met with threats and human opposition throughout history. That’s part of the story of the human race. It is informative to see how these disciples responded to threats and intimidation. My human nature would be inclined to become defensive, and even combative, under those circumstances. The disciples had once demonstrated that same tendency. When Samaritans refused to show Jesus and His disciples the common courtesy of hospitality, James and John responded as we might have. “When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, ‘Lord do you want us to call fire down from heaven and destroy them?’ ” (Luke 9:54).

What a difference the Holy Spirit had made in their lives. Here, they weren’t asking for protection from the opposition, nor were they asking for vengeance. Instead, the disciples asked God to give them the courage to speak boldly about Jesus. Where they had once responded to opposition with a plea for vengeance they now showed compassion for the hurting. It was the physical healing of a crippled man that had initiated the hostility of the religious leaders. Now they were saying, “God, do it again.”

Their prayer is a good one for us to pray as well. “Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”