The Danger of Delayed Prayer

Recently, Tucker Carlson posed the question, What else can they do to President Trump besides kill him? Once spoken, the words hung in the air and landed on me with a flood of memories from an incident on February 24,2004. This seasonal regret pops up in my memory this time every year. I share with you the story now, perhaps because many of us need the reminder to be instant in prayer when the Holy Spirit speaks.

A week after the February 2004 National Prayer Breakfast (NPB), Grace Nelson, Senator Bill Nelson’s wife, contacted me. Would I accompany her and five other women on a nine-day trip to the Balkans? We aimed to encourage critical leaders in Serbia, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Romania. Our direction from Doug Coe, the NPB leader, stressed the trip’s urgency. Telling us, You must go now. It cannot wait until Spring.  

Our first stop was Serbia, where we stayed in the Serbian White Palace and met with Prince Alexander and Princess Katherine. Excellent discussions occurred around Jesus, accompanied by powerful prayer times as we listened to their hearts for the restoration of their divided nation. We shared Jesus, the head of Social Services in Romania, as she discussed the heartbreak of the country’s inability to care for the millions of orphaned children—other meetings with broken leaders who looked for answers to their country’s problems. But the visit with the President and First Lady of Macedonia, Boris and Vilma Trajkovski, would impact my prayer life forever.  

After a delightful ladies’ lunch with Vilma, President Boris Trajkovski dropped by the residence to say hello and welcome us to Macedonia. On his way out the door to return to his office, he turned to my friend Marge and me and pointed to a bench in a private garden at the presidential home.

He said, I sat right there on that bench and prayed. I asked the Lord if I should sign the bill Congress had passed. All it needed was my signature. I clearly felt the Lord tell me what I already knew: I could not approve this bill, so I refused to sign it. With those words, President Boris Trajkovski excused himself from our group, said quick goodbyes, and walked out the door to his waiting car and driver, who would take him to his office to tend to his presidential duties.

Marge turned to me and whispered, “That, Nancy, will cost him his life. My knees almost buckled. The first thought that came to me was: Pray! Now! However, my second thought overruled the urgency. I reasoned: Many important people are in this room, and if I pray or get on my knees like I want, they will think I’m crazy. My third thought was a bit more logical than the one I embraced: I belong to a wonderful intercessory prayer group, and we will pray for him when I get back home. How could refusing to start a university cost him his life? I didn’t know, but I did know that Marge, the prophetic one in our group, had a reputation for being highly accurate in her promptings from God.

Three days later, as we waited to visit with the President of Romania, his aid bolted from his office and headed directly for where our group sat waiting. The President couldn’t meet with us. They had just received notice that President Trajkovski and eight members of his staff were all killed in a plane crash. On their way to a NATO meeting, they encountered fog and crashed into the mountains north of Skopje. NATO planes would investigate the crash, but unable to fly through the fog, they delayed their search for survivors. NATO assumed everyone was deceased.

My mind could barely grasp the magnitude of the situation. Boris Trajkovski was a strong believer in Jesus. For years, he headed up the Macedonian Evangelical Methodist Church. He established an ongoing Youth Exchange program between the youth of Macedonia and England. Most importantly, his country needed him at that moment in time.

His fault was in his loyalty to his country. He cared about the sovereignty of Macedonia. One of his primary objectives was to secure the border between the Christian nation of Macedonia and the Muslim nation of Albania. The Albanians had a slow progressive plan to take more land from Macedonia, and every year, they encroached on Macedonian land as they blurred the borders by moving their homes and businesses into Macedonia, where they spoke Albanian, flew Albanian flags, and pledged allegiance to Albania.  

I should have dropped to my knees and prayed when the prophetic warning came. Could my prayer stop the hand of the enemy? That’s a question I will never know, but I know the fruit of not praying. When God speaks, and the spirit of compassion comes with undeniable force, that is the time to pray. Intercessors know when this happens.

I urge each of us to be instant in season with our prayers and not delay any prompting of the Holy Spirit. Our nation depends on our prayers during these tumultuous times.