Greetings to you in the wonderful name of Jesus Christ – THE Risen Saviour! What a beautiful day in the Kingdom! As it is a Thursday…it must be the day after Wednesday’s weather experience…but still, each day is a day that God has prepared for us and He waits to see if we can find at least one thing to thank Him for and/or a reason to rejoice. Today I will be praying for you, asking Father to release joy, peace, and hope to you in artesian well-like proportion.
Yesterday was our weekly prayer-time for our church family…and it is always exciting and revealing for we arrive with our lunches and our thoughts but without an agenda -we wait to see what God is going to do. We, as you know, are a small congregation but when we start to connect the extended family, we begin to realise that the family is larger than we thought. Yes, our physical, in one location family is small but we ‘enlarge our tent’ to take in family in South Korea and, this week, in Australia and California and British Columbia and Alberta and in communities throughout our province and even to the USA.
Even the content of our prayers is magnified by the family-connections – nothing is impossible to be considered when God is motivating and directing. We have been blessed many times with the need to thank God for answering prayer in very specific and open ways. By faith, we have thanked God for prayers that He has answered even though we may not have observed them or even had an answer acknowledged.
One of the beautiful blessings that we don’t acknowledge enough is found in the simple words of an old chorus: Prayer changes things in the morning-Prayer changes things at noon-Prayer changes things in the evening-So keep your heart in tune…then comes a slight change: God answers prayers in the morning—at noon—-in the evening—etc…eventually, along comes these words: Prayer changes me in the morning—at noon—in the evening-So keep your heart in tune.
Yes! one of the answers to prayer that we don’t say “Thank You!” for enough is for the changes that happen in our own lives simply because we have been in the Presence of the Lord of lords, the King of kings, the Commander of Heaven’s armies. Oh, we sing about it…O what needless pain-we don’t bear…O the peace -we do not forfeit…why, you ask…because we simply and humbly took everything to God is prayer.
Many times over the last few weeks, be it after Monday noon-hour prayer time or Wednesday prayer time or after a Sunday morning prayer time – I have heard someone testify about the refreshment they received, the hope restored to them, the power released with in them….perhaps, unknowingly what gives us assurance that God is looking after the people and circumstances and events we were praying about is the immediate effect it had on us.
Something to ponder on a February day…be blessed!