"Hear my prayer, LORD; listen to my cry for mercy.
When I am in distress, I call to you because you answer me."
-- Psalm 86:6-7
Today, I'm grateful for answered prayer.
(And unanswered ones too, but that's for another day...)
Just within the last two months or so, before I sit down with my Bible in the mornings, I started to take a minute and write down 3 or 4 praises to God. Either ways He had sorted out a particular situation or grace He had granted in dealing with a difficult person or just simply answered prayer...on the large scale and the small scale. After writing down a few praises, I began taking another minute or so and writing down a few prayer requests...needs that I had, worries about my children, lifting friends and family members up.
Why I hadn't thought to do this until recently I don't know??
But, most amazing through something so simple as taking a note, is that after the first week of doing this, I could go back in my notebook (kudos to all you fancy schmancy journal keepers. Mine's just a plain-Jane spiral notebook) and see rock-hard evidence of answered prayer - Every. Single. Day.
It seems for me that it only takes one little thing in my life to go awry and not according to my plan, and everything else quickly gets off-kilter. Just by glancing back a few pages in my notebook, I can see God's hand working in my life and my faith is quickly restored.
The Bible says, "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1). Just a quick reminder of answered prayer gets my faith (confidence) back in check.
I would encourage you that if you're feeling like God's forgotten you to take a minute and write down a few things you're grateful for and then write down a few needs. Deliver these in prayer to the Lord and in no time at all, you're faith will be restored.
"...a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed."
-- Isaiah 28:16
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