The Prayer That God Answered Bigger Than We Could Imagine — Dave Hannah
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When Dave Hannah looks back over his life, he sees a pattern he never recognized in the moment—God quietly arranging details, redirecting disappointments, and preparing a story far larger than anything he or his friends could have dreamed. One of the clearest examples began during his junior year at Oklahoma State, shortly after he surrendered his life to Christ “in a really serious way,” as he put it. God began changing him immediately. He joined the Southern Baptist Student Union, surrounded himself with other believers on the football team, and together they came up with a bold idea: host a three‑night evangelistic event and invite all 10,000 students on campus.
Dave was a brand‑new Christian. He had seen Billy Graham fill stadiums and assumed it was simple—“I thought he just said, ‘Y’all come,’ and the Lord brought everybody.” He had no idea how much work went into something like that. But he believed every student would want to know God personally, so he and a few others met with the OSU President to request Gallagher Hall, the largest venue on campus that could seat 10,000.
The president smiled and said, “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll give you a classroom that holds about 300. If you can fill that, then we’ll consider the gym.” Dave walked out crushed. Gallagher Hall was the dream. A classroom felt like failure.
But the students didn’t give up. They organized a 24‑hour prayer chain over Christmas break. One hundred twenty students committed to pray in 15‑minute slots for two straight weeks. Dave remembers his own slot: “I think I was praying from 4:00 to 4:15.” Their single request: “God, give us Gallagher Hall.”
When they returned from break, full of faith and expectation, Dave went back to the president. The answer was the same: fill the classroom first. No Gallagher Hall. Dave said, “I was just completely defeated.” The students were devastated. Nothing came of the event. Their two weeks of prayer seemed wasted.
But God was not finished.
Two years later, after Dave graduated, God led him to found Athletes in Action (AIA), a sports organization of Campus Crusade for Christ (CRU). Four years after the original prayer meetings, he returned to Oklahoma State with the AIA wrestling team. Gallagher Hall was packed—standing room only. The wrestlers competed, shared their testimonies, and presented the gospel to the entire arena. Afterward, the assistant sports information director, a man who had never liked Dave, walked up and said, “You started this. I thought you were way too dumb to do anything like this.” Dave could only answer, “Well, look what God can do.”
And then the realization hit him.
They had prayed for Gallagher Hall once. God gave it to them twice a year for the next ten years. And not just Gallagher Hall—AIA teams went on to share Christ in “almost every college gym in North America plus gyms all over the world… to the tune of a few billion people over the last 60 years.” Dave said, “God didn’t answer our prayer the way we prayed it. He answered it far beyond anything any of us could’ve believed.”
It was Ephesians 3:20 in real time—“exceedingly abundantly above all we could ask or imagine.”
But that was only one thread in the larger story God was weaving in Dave’s life.
He grew up in a tiny Iowa town, playing four sports because that’s what small schools required. His dad, deeply involved in athletics, quietly advocated for him. Dave made All‑State in all four sports—something he now believes only happened because of his father’s influence. OSU scouted him twice: once in football, once in basketball. Both times he happened to have the best games of his life. “If they’d seen the rest of my games,” he laughed, “they probably wouldn’t have offered me a scholarship.” But God was arranging things.
His freshman year at OSU nearly ended before it began. He separated both shoulders, got knocked down on every play, and suffered headaches so severe he almost quit and drove home to Iowa. But the fear of disappointing his father forced him to talk to the trainer first. The trainer looked at him and said, “You idiot. Your helmet is too small.” He handed Dave a larger helmet, and the headaches disappeared instantly. That small moment kept him at OSU—where God would later save him, disciple him, and launch him into a global ministry.
Dave said, “I wasn’t even a believer in those days, but I can look back and see all the things God was doing in my life before I even knew Him.”
Dave also reflected on being present when the dream for the Jesus Film was born. Bill Bright had envisioned it 25 years earlier, but it wasn’t possible until God brought the right people, the right funding, and the right timing together. Dave said, “There’s probably no better presentation of the gospel than the Jesus Film.” He watched God use it worldwide—and now believes God may be preparing something similar through Ambassadors of Compassion, potentially producing major motion pictures addressing mental health and life principles for students around the world.
As Dave put it, “We’ll see where it’s all going to go, but I think what He has given us… He may have also given us the Jesus Film for the mental health world.”
The story ends where all God Stories end—with gratitude, prayer, and awe.
Dave summed it up simply: “We just have to be faithful to our calling and see what God is going to do.”
And that is the heart of this God Story:
God hears every prayer—but He answers in His way, His timing, and often on a scale far beyond anything we could imagine.
