PRAYER

One of the books I am currently reading touches on the aspect of prayer and answered requests, a fitting subject as we reminisce over the past year.

"There is no doubt that the people of God are meant to have answers to prayer. there is no doubt that we are meant to pray, believing that He is able to answer...There should be a personal trail behind us - like wet footprints on the sand, or a line of grass clippings which slip out of our grasp as we carry them along a path, or ski marks on unbroken snow down a mountainside. We should be able to look back and gain courage to go on because of the trail of answered prayer."
Edith Schaeffer
"Afflictions"


What importance does prayer play into your life? If you were to log a journal entry of the answered prayers in your life over the past 10 years, would you fill up one line, one page, ten pages, a whole book? In a friend's blog there is written a post on making a difference in this world, (something I recommend reading; there is link to his blog from my own), and I wonder if our prayer life is making as much or more of a difference as our tithe, our service, our church attendance, and so forth. One could continue adding to this list indefinitely. Could it be that prayer is one of those elements that gets put on the back burner because the tangibility of such an unseen cause does not provide immediate reward? Prayer takes effort, time, and energy. It's easy to stick an envelope with money in the mail or in the church offering. It's easy to take a meal to someone who is sick. The immediate rewards cause us to feel good, but in prayer we may never know the difference we make in other people's lives. And yet, I wonder if when we get to heaven many will thank us for the prayers we offered up on their behalf, even those whom we never met. I wonder if God will consider the greatest work on earth consisted of the prayers we offered up and for which we received answers, both known or unknown. How many footprints of answered prayers could be left behind as you walk in the sand? How long is your trail of answered prayers as you walk on the path of life? How much courage or encouragement do we lack because we do not see God working? Could it be because we are not engaged in prayer as often as we should?

As I think back upon this past year, I am encouraged to see the answers to prayer God has given in our lives. However, may He strengthen my prayer life so that my trail or footprints of answered prayers will continue to make a difference all around me.