My friend was hospitalized. Her first visitor suggested that her illness might lead to chronic pain. My friend was discouraged.
Her second visitor prayed for her. My friend was encouraged and healed.
Be a friend who prays.
The first day I substituted in their class was hard. The second day went much better.
Why? I asked about 20 people to pray for me. And, I asked God to give me His authority over the students.
After the second day, the aide who was in the class said, “I’m trying to figure out what you were doing yesterday. I’ve never seen those students behave so well.”
Now she knows my secret, “I ask God for help.”
When God answered his prayer, Daniel responded with praise. “Let the name of God be blessed forever and ever, for wisdom and power belong to Him (Daniel 2:20).”
Daniel also told the king his answer came from “a God in heaven who reveals mysteries (Daniel 2:28).”
Give God credit and praise when He answers prayer.
When she told me what the leadership decided, I wanted to petition, and get others to join me, so those in charge would change their decision.
But I stopped myself. I believe God is good, powerful, loving and wise. I believe He answers prayer.
Yesterday, our prayer was answered. And all I did was pray.
To God alone be the glory.
We prayed, willing ourselves to trust, even when the wait seemed endless. In time, God granted our request.
*We’re joyfully settling in to our new home in the city, thanks to the Lord and to all of you who prayed.
You might still be waiting. Keep on praying. With unfailing love the Lord leads His people (from Exodus 15:13).
We rented a storage unit for our household goods, even though it seemed too small. It was all they had. The night before we moved we read how Jesus fed 4,000 men with a few small fish and 7 loaves (see Mark 8:1-9). We prayed, “Lord, you fed 4,000 with a few fish. Will you make that storage unit big enough for all our stuff?
As we packed the unit from floor to ceiling, our friend said, “You have to see this, look at the angle of cut of that leg, it’s flush against the chair. It looks like it was planned.”
At the end of the day, we had room left over.
We thanked God together for fitting about 4,000 things into a fish-sized space.
Waiting for marriage was sometimes heart achingly hard. So I prayed, a lot. I often reminded the Lord, “You seek godly offspring (Malachi 2:15).”
At just the right time, the Lord answered. Now my daughter is a happily married mother. (I know. I just visited her home. I can’t stop thinking about my granddaughter. She loves life and laughs quickly.)
If I could have seen the joy that was coming, the wait would have been easier. I can’t go back and relive those days of longing, but I can assure you, that whatever you long for, whatever you pray for, God’s answer will be unimaginably good.
Friday’s Wall Street Journal featured a missionary doctor who recently recovered from Ebola, a deadly disease.
“Smiling broadly, looking as fit as he had in photos taken before he became ill, Kent Brantly said he was grateful to be alive . . . He hugged the roughly 30 people from his treatment team, and said, ‘God saved my life, the direct answer to thousands and thousands of prayers.'”*
It’s refreshing to hear someone give God credit for answering prayer.
*Cameron McWhirter and Betsey McKay, The Wall Street Journal, Friday, August 22, 2014 – Vol. CCLXIV No. 45, pp. A1, A3.
I
Two important documents fell from my purse. God noticed.
A young man found one in a parking lot. He brought it to the store’s courtesy desk. They called me. It was found before I knew it was lost.
But now I knew the other document was missing. We searched. We prayed. We asked others to pray. We searched some more. God watched.
The next morning I had a Facebook message. A young mom had walked over the document, then went back to pick it up so it wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands. She would give it to a mutual friend at church.
God used the kind goodness of others to answer our prayers, even before we prayed (see Matthew 6:8).
You don’t have to know how every prayer is answered; you just have to believe that God has heard them all and will answer in His way and time.*
*Stormie Omartian, Prayer Warrior, p.200.
