I was plagued by the question recently, "What is my life?...How is this in any way useful from an eternal perspective?"
It occurred to me as I pondered this question, that there are some activities in which I can participate (all from my recliner), which would be more useful than just sleeping or idling away time. Most of them require my laptop, so I will be waiting with even greater eagerness for it to be returned to me. But there is one thing I can do, which I've not been doing enough of lately, and that is: Prayer.
We tend to minimize the importance and the power of this activity...relegating it to a few minutes here and there at prayer meetings, in church, or bits of "help me" conversations with God...but when I was considering it last night, a few things occurred to me. One is that prayer works. This may seem to be obvious, but do I really believe in this? If I did really believe it, wouldn't I spend a whole lot more of time doing it? How do I know prayer works? It is simple...every time I have prayed, especially lately, God has responded. Sometimes this has been in miraculous ways. Sometimes it is in ways that can look like unlikely coincidences taking place. It's like God is pouring out evidences to me that my prayers have power, so why am I not doing it more?
One such "coincidental" answers to a prayer was this: Last week, our basement (half of which is finished with flooring and rugs etc.) was flooded when our water heater tank failed. Fortunately the replacement tank was free because it was still under warranty, but the plumbing bill was $250 more than what we had in our bank account, and we were not getting another paycheck until the following week. The plumber was not willing to wait for his money, so we were in a great bind. As my husband and I discussed it over the phone, he looked online at our bank account just to see how things stood. There was silence for a few significant seconds...and then he started to laugh. I was bewildered until he said to me, "I know what you are going to say, and maybe you are right, but our tax return was just minutes ago direct deposited into our account." We had filed only a few days earlier and neither of us ever anticipated seeing the money so quickly.
I had been praying all morning, "Lord, please work this out somehow" and He responded! Not only that, but my father came over and cleaned up the mess from the flood and rented a drying fan so that by the end of the day, it was mostly dry and looked better than it had to begin with! There is NO way that I could have done that work because of the pain I have, and that was another prayer that was answered that day.
Now people can say, "But that was just a coincidence." and maybe it was. But if it was then I am one of the luckiest people around, because these kind of "coincidences" happen to me with regularity. Even my family, who are not believers, have had to admit to the fact that there is something to the power of my prayers.
Now, if I see prayers being answered in the short term, visible sense, why should they not also be answered in the long term and in the intangible realms? And if they are, why am I not pursuing those lines of communication with the Lord often and with fervor? Answer: laziness and stupidity. Short and simple. Now, I DO pray...but the intensity and frequency of my prayer times have really diminished in the past few months and that doesn't make much sense because my opportunities have greatly increased as well as the needs for which I should be praying. And this pursuit is one of the greatest ways to make use of my time in a way which has a tangible as well as an eternal benefit. So I know what I need to do...Now I will focus more on doing it!
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