Friends gave us a book. Twenty-one years ago. I just started reading it.
Perhaps a gift you’ve given is sitting on a shelf. Perhaps your prayers are yet unanswered.
“And Patience was willing to wait.”*
*L.B. Cowman, Streams in the Desert, p.339.
Our youngest 14 month old grandson had surgery (ear tubes) last week. We were concerned that he’d cry (well scream) when they took him from his parents to go to the operating room.
He’s usually more comfortable with men than women, except for his mom, so we prayed that a male would carry him back.
Here’s what my daughter texted while he was in surgery. “They took him back. A male anesthesiologist was holding him and he was happy. Praise the Lord!”
I cried out to the Lord. He heard me and opened the heavens. Thick clouds shielded the brightness around him.
He reached down and rescued me because he delights in me (from Psalm 18:6-19).
Long ago we caught a monarch caterpillar and watched it become a chrysalis and then a butterfly. Our youngest daughter had been too small to understand, so for years we looked and prayed that we would find one. We never did.
Then, late one summer, we noticed a monarch chrysalis on our front porch. The day we left for vacation my youngest daughter watched it emerge.
Now, every time I see a monarch butterfly I remember God’s kindness.
She prayed for a son and God granted her petition. In her next recorded prayer, Hannah “takes little notice of the particular mercy she was now rejoicing in. She overlooks the gift and praises the giver.”*
Here’s some of what Hannah prayed:
There is none holy like the Lord:
There is no rock like our God.
The Lord is a God of knowledge,
The Lord will judge the ends of the earth (from 1 Samuel 2:2-10).
Next time God answers your prayer, praise Him like Hannah did.
*Matthew Henry, The Matthew Henry Commentary, p.283.
When we “tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power and the wonders he has done” then they “put their trust in God (Psalm 78:4-7).”
Greta* recently told me, “My stomach hurt so I prayed and my stomach stopped hurting.”
*Greta, our very much loved granddaughter, turns six years old today.
Before his arrest, Jesus went to Gethsemane, and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will but as you will (Matthew 26:39).”
We know how God answered that prayer: “It was the will of the Lord to crush him . . . He bore the sin of many (Isaiah 53:10-12).”
Those who pray “Your will be done” often find the path to joy is through pain.
