DOES GOD EVER FORGET OUR PRAYERS? When our prayers don’t seem to get answered, we are (or at least I often) tempted to think that God has forgotten about them. (And, to be even more
truthful, at times I feel betrayed by God and proceed to tell Him how unfair He is to me - but of course that’s my weak faith expressing itself - and I’ll save that for another spiritual journal entry.) This past Monday at our church staff meeting we read the day 4 devotion from Walter Wangerin’s “Preparing for Jesus”, in which he points out that “God doesn’t forget our prayers”; but rather “It is in the fullness of time that he answers them”. And not only that, but - and here’s the new insight (for me) - that “the particular and ‘seeming’ private prayer becomes, in God’s omnipotent answer, a universal benefaction. Wangerin gives the example of Zechariah and Elizabeth’s prayers to bear children (which they most likely began praying for when they were first married). But it isn’t until now - in their old age - that their prayer is answered with the birth of John the Baptist, God’s chosen ‘messenger’ to prepare the people for the coming of the Lord - and all “in the fullness of time”, in God’s timing!!! Wangerin adds “The child they wanted was also the man God wanted, and what the Lord gave to that particular couple He also gave to the world: a prophet filled with the Holy Spirit! Oh, what a vast answer to a tiny prayer!” The gracious answer to these two people - many years after their prayer - now becomes “grace for the whole world”! So, the next time we feel that God as forgotten one of our prayers - may we remember that “even as we pray it, the prayer lodges with God - eternal, omnipotent, God only wise - never to die but rather to find it’s holiest, most blessed expression - in the fullness of time!”
