Unlocking the Chains of Smoking
When I was a young teenager, I was a regular nag when it came to griping about my Father’s long-running love affair with cigarettes. I hated the cigarettes, I hated him smoking them, and I never missed an opportunity to complain to him about them. Hiding them and sneaking matches out of my Dad’s reach allowed me to present my personal annoyance with his irritating habit.
Later on in my youthful years, my Father had returned to his Christian roots in a big way and he knew his smoking habit did not line up with his faith. However, this man had been a hard-core addict to smoking with a 25-year career of chain smoking. Quitting was not going to be easy for this dedicated smoker.
One night, my father prayed to God that he wanted him to take away his desire to smoke so that he could quit and he did not care how he did it, even if God had to make him sick to accomplish it (this was truly his request). I am not sure what was on his mind when he made that request (perhaps the Holy Spirit put it in his mind). That very night, my Father came down with a terrible fever, a frightening fever. My Mother explained to me what my Father had asked for and why he was so ill. By the next morning, my Dad’s fever had broken and that is not all—this man, who had been a hard-core chain-smoker, had completely quit his nasty hard-to-conquer habit. He even tried to smoke and was no longer interested in smoking. Now this was an early taste for me of the supernatural power of God.
