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PROGRAM D-8476
What if all your prayers were answered? Prayer is our lifeline to God and we are encouraged to cast all our care upon God because he cares for us. God is intimately interested in your everyday life. He rejoices when you rejoice; he mourns when you mourn. Jesus empathizes with all your weaknesses because he walked this earthly road like you do.
It is normal and wise for us to pray about the circumstances of our lives—to bring all our concerns to God in prayer. As the old hymn says, “Oh, what peace we often forfeit, oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”
If all your prayers were answered, would it make a difference for eternity? That’s the question my pastor posed a few Sundays ago, and I’ve been giving that a lot of thought. Do I pray primarily—not exclusively, but primarily—about things that would make a difference for eternity, if my prayers were answered?
For example, how do you pray for your family and friends? Do you primarily pray for their spiritual condition? Do you pray for the believers to walk worthy of their calling? Do you pray that they will use their gifts to glorify God and do the good works he planned for them to do? If they are not yet believers, do you pray mostly that God will do whatever it takes for them to see their need of salvation?
That kind of praying is more important than their health, their financial problems, their success, and even their happiness. Sure, we all want our family and friends to be happy, but maybe they need some tough times to bring them back to God. If all of your prayers for your family and others were answered, would they have better grades at school, better jobs, more money, nicer homes? Or would they start to live wholeheartedly for Jesus?
Examine the content of your prayers for your family. Pray for their physical needs, their success, their health—yes, of course. But make it your habit to pray mostly and primarily for their spiritual condition, for their relationship with God through Jesus Christ. These things matter for eternity.