Approaching Easter: Eternal Prayers (Chapter 14) (Wednesday in Holy Week)
PAUSE
As I enter prayer now, I pause to be still; to breathe slowly to recenter my scattered senses upon the presence of God.
(pause)
I pray Psalm 61: 1-2, repeating the words slowly, several times: “Hear my cry, 0 God; listen to my prayer. From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”
REFLECT
Bible: The four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people. They sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy.” (Rev. 5: 8-9)
Book passage: It’s awesome to imagine that our unanswered prayers – all the frustrations, the tears, the dashed hopes – are being stored up by God din those golden bowls and may, eventually, become our most powerful contribution to the world. Let me say it again: our unanswered prayers may be the real ministry of our lives. As Tim Chester writes in The Message of Prayer: “Prayers we think of as directed to the present are in fact being stored up to be answered on the final day.”* (p. 208)
* Tim Chester, The Message of Prayer (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003), 243.
ASK
Ask myself: The prospect of my pain contributing to some other miracle at some other time for someone else may not be very comforting right now, but isn’t it reassuring to know that my prayers are not wasted? That they are accumulating credit in heaven? That every single one is remembered, cherished, and ultimately deployed by God?
Ask the Lord:
Take a little time to pray “the same old prayer” you’ve prayed a thousand times before, but this time picture it rising like incense from one of those great golden bowls before the Lord.
YIELD
The hymn, “It is Well with My Soul,” by Horatio Spafford:
And Lord haste the day, when the faith shall be sight, The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descent, Even so, it is well with my soul.
Amen
