When You Pray
I got a text from a friend tonight. She told me that all over the country (USA), people were going to pray together. At 9 PM, I was to stop what I was doing and spend 1 minute praying for our country. I’m guessing the organizers told people in different time zones what time to pray, so we could all pray together.
Apparently, during World War II, Britain did the same thing and had great success. And it can never be a bad idea to bring any facet of life to The Creator of life and then trust The Master to work well with His creations. So, hubby and I joined hands and bowed our heads, and we prayed. We were in a restaurant, so you know that’s exactly when our server brought the first part of our meal. But she was respectful and waited. I pray it lifted up The Lord in her thoughts.
The day brought a lot of activity, and the night brought temperatures cut in half from the day, but all in all, it felt like a good day. I don’t want to bore folks with all my daily doings, so I looked in my photo history with my Amazon Photos and found this image from Jan 22 of 2024. It reminded me of the 9 PM prayer and thus became tonight’s blog image.
Now, I invite you readers to join believers all over who are taking that minute to lift up our land, our people, and our leadership to The Lord.
Most of us have no idea what our leadership faces from enemies, both foreign and domestic. We live our lives, go to our jobs, have meals with friends and family, and take care of business while remaining blissfully unaware of the threats our leaders must watch for and prepare defenses against. We form our opinions and make our judgments on the little we think we know from what gets shared over the airwaves. But Yahveh Almighty sees what we cannot. He knows the threats, the credible plans, and the steps needed to protect us. So, our leaders need us to pray. And our Creator wants us to pray and wants to listen. Let’s gratefully step up to just one minute each night to raise a collective voice of prayer and praise toward Heaven and know that God is listening. In YahShua’s name.
🙏✨🤲✨🛐✨🛐✨🤲✨🙏
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Pick A Hand
Whose Hands by Flickr User Tambako the Jaguar, CC License = Attribution, No Derivative Works
Click image to open a new tab/window to view the original image and to access the user’s full photo stream at Flickr.
I recommend a visit to this photographer’s page if you like wildlife and stunning nature photos. His work is amazing.
Have you ever hidden a gift in your hand and then put your hands out in front of you or behind your back to let a child guess where the prize might be? It’s a fun game adults like to play with children that adds an element of effort to gift-giving. When we want to give good gifts to children, we might make them play the guessing game with us just to make it a little more fun for both the child and us. It doesn’t matter if it’s our own children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, or whoever. Making the gift more like a prize for them ups the value at least a little bit.
If you’ve played that game, you know that you will do just about anything to get the child to select correctly. Maybe you’ll lean your head to the side it’s in. Maybe you’ll wink on that side. Maybe you’ll lift the correct hand just a little higher or lower, or push it out a little farther, just to have a better chance that the child will pick the hand with the gift. We want the child to get the gift, and we don’t want the child to feel like a failure. We want to give the prize so much that if we are using the behind-the-back technique, we will often just change hands if the child guesses incorrectly.
Off and on, I’ve studied about the effects of prayer on God. I had heard, and even repeated, that prayer doesn’t change God, but instead prayer changes us. God is God and is the same yesterday, today, and forever, so we cannot change Him. We wouldn’t want a God that is changeable just by human requests because then we couldn’t trust Him. But, the other day I was seeking God’s instruction on this topic, and the above scenario came into my mind.
As I played the hidden gift game in my mind, but with God as the parent, I realized how much God wants to shower good things upon His children. He loves to give us gifts and prizes, but He wants interaction with us at the same time. His word says that we have not because we ask not, so if prayer is not for the purpose of changing Him, then His desire for us to ask is about that interaction. He also knows that our faith will increase when He answers our requests.
That understanding came about in the last week. My understanding of prayers that request things of God went a little deeper today. I watched an older 700 Club that did an interview with Max Lucado, and he made a statement that truly clarified things for me. He explained that prayer does not change God’s intentions, but it does affect His decisions.
As a parent or caregiver to someone we love, we will have certain intentions and a certain will that underlies all our decisions. We want whatever will protect and benefit those we love and care for. Even though we want to give them good things, if they ask for something that would go against our intentions or will for their best care, we will deny the request. As Christians, if we ask God for something that goes against His intentions or will for our lives, He will most likely deny that request. Asking Him, however, creates that interaction that enables us to discover God’s perfect will and His intentions for our lives.
In Matthew 7:7 (NKJV), we get the reminder to just “ASK” for what we want. If I write the verse in three parts, one sentence on top of another, note the first letter of each sentence…
Ask, and it will be given to you; Seek, and you will find; Knock, and it will be opened to you.
Yep, the three first lines remind us to simply ask, or as it says in The Amplified Bible and other versions, “Keep on asking.” Again, in The Amplified Bible, we read Philippians 4:6 that tells us to continue seeking God for our requests. It says…
Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God.
Like the old song says, “He’s got the whole world in His hands,” so we can know that He is able to provide whatever we ask for. Reach up in praise and touch the Hands that hold whatever provision you need. Pick a hand and know that you’ll get the prize. Both hands have the nail scars to prove they’ve earned it for you.
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