With the early church, they prayed for something that was so big, that when God gave it to them, they had trouble believing that they had actually been granted what they had asked for.

Big things are not difficult for God. But big things can be difficult to believe for in our expectations and thinking.

Peter had been arrested and was scheduled to be killed, just as the Apostle James had already been killed. It was only because Peter had been arrested on a holiday that he hadn’t already been killed too.

But this week-long holiday was coming to a close. Peter’s time was nearly up. The next morning the holiday would be over and the government executioners would be back at work.

“But constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church.”

This word “constant,” literally means “stretched out.” It is the same word that James chapter 5 uses when God says that the effectual FERVENT prayer of a righteous man avails much.

Stretched out prayer is fervent prayer. And it is unbelievably powerful! In fact, it is so powerful that we see later in this chapter that the church had difficulty believing that they had been granted their answer.

What they had asked for was beyond impossible for any amount of human wisdom to comprehend. Peter had at least 16 soldiers assigned to guard him around the clock. There were probably other soldiers that were guarding the gates of the prison.

And Peter was actually physically chained to two of the soldiers. Herod had gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure that no miracles were going to intervene, as had happened previously for Peter and John.

But God has no limits. Not even when the government tries to intervene against Him.

Can you believe it? And how would you actually pray if you realized that there are no limits on God’s end?