I was seated alone on a row toward the front. In walked a man I had seen before, but didn’t really know. He said his name was Doug Prater. We sang Farther Along. I just sat there and listened to his clear and steady tenor.
Tempted and tried, we’re oft made to wonder
Why it should be thus all day long
While there are others living about us
Never molested though in the wrongWhen death has come and taken our loved ones
It leaves our home so lonely and drear
Then do we wonder why others prosper
Living so wicked year after yearFarther along we’ll know all about it
Farther along we’ll understand why
Cheer up my brother, live in the sunshine
We’ll understand it all, by and by.
Shane Prater was young. We prayed, and we thought he would survive, but he didn’t. As cancer ravaged his body, his faith remained. So did his father’s.
Who was the man who sat by me? He is Shane’s father. As he sat there alone singing Farther Alone, I almost got emotional.
To hear him singing that song…it meant something.
I happened to know a little about this man’s history…and to see him quietly and calmly sing those words…it was powerful.
The sermon’s question was, “Got Faith?”
Mr. Prater’s song was a resounding, “Yes!”
That’s the faith that that is the victory, that’s the faith that overcomes the world. That’s the faith that says, Lord I know you’re working out your purposes, and I’m glad to be a part of it, even when when it hurts. It’s the faith that say,s I know that after my body has decayed, that I will see God, and one day he will resurrect our vile bodies and make them like his glorious body. It’s the faith that keeps us going, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.
