Psalm 86:6-7 Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer; listen to my plea for grace. In the day of my trouble I call upon you, for you answer me.
Every morning for the last three and a half years, I’ve prayed for my neighbor as I passed her house on my two-mile walk. Lord, please let Bonnie see the goodness and wonder of your love for her. I‘d added her name to my daily prayers when I learned of her cancer diagnosis. Other than an occasional update when I caught her husband, I rarely saw her. Yet I continued to pray.
A couple Sundays ago I was running late for church, but decided to walk anyway, figuring I could still make it in plenty of time. When I approached Bonnie’s driveway, I looked, and there she stood! Dressed in blue pajamas over her thin frame, she was going to get the morning newspaper. I could hardly believe my eyes.
I rushed down the drive to ask how she was. She told me the chemo doctors concluded there was nothing else they could do, and she was now under hospice care. I expressed my sympathy and said I’d been praying every day that she would see the goodness of God’s love. Then we talked about some of those “goodnesses,” like the doctors not being able to explain how she had survived far past their expectations. After we prayed together (through a few tears), she said, “I never come out this early to get the paper.” And I responded, “I never walk this late on a Sunday morning.”
We both realized it was a God-thing.
All this time, I had been praying my neighbor would see the goodness of God’s love. That morning God revealed his goodness to me as well. He let me see her in her final days, giving me assurance he had answered my prayers.
The book of Psalms contains over 150 prayers. Prayers for forgiveness, prayers for direction, prayers for help. No circumstance in life falls outside the need for prayer. David sure knew the importance of prayer. In Psalm 84, he cried out to God because he knew he was calling out to someone who would answer him.
Do you know God will answer your prayers? So pray with assurance. Pray, then pray some more to the God who answers.