Have you ever considered the immense value of the gift of prayer? God does an excellent job of keeping prayer a high priority for me—even if I don’t always see the answers or He doesn’t answer the way I think He will. But once in a while, I get to see the answer right after I pray. This happened just the other day when I was driving to Houston, Missouri. I was on the way to my office on the back roads which are teeming with wildlife. This route is my favorite because I can pray without distraction as there is poor cell phone reception.
So there I was, tooling along in my old Toyota Forerunner, having a great prayer-sesh. I was specifically asking the Spirit to direct my prayers when suddenly, He filled me with a sense of gratitude for all of the times He had protected me on this road. I began thanking Him. Believe me, my safety is nothing short of miraculous considering I drive around 30,000 miles a year and I’ve hit 10 deer over the years. Each time, God has protected me from injury [my vehicles have not fared so well]. So, driving along, I began to give God thanks for His gracious provision of safety and then…led by the Spirit, I added a prayer for continued safety.
Less than five minutes later, a huge buck jumped out right in front of me!
I was traveling about 55 miles an hour, so there was a little chance that I was going to be able to stop. I prepared to hit him square on and simultaneously slammed on my brakes, bracing for the impact. It seemed like everything dropped into super-slow motion, kind of like the scene from Ice Age where Scrat the squirrel is running toward the great Acorn in Heaven. 😆 The buck was coming from the right side and across the path in front of my vehicle. A split second before impact, he landed his last jump on the driver’s side of my vehicle. As I closed in on him, he did a move that looked like something from “The Matrix,” and with his rump tucked in and ducked the whole back of his body out of my path. The driver’s side panel gave his buns a soft brushing as my vehicle continued down the road. It was surreal.
God answered my prayers in living color!
God always answers our prayers. It’s rarely the way we expect. God is better than we think. He does greater things than we ask or imagine. On this day, He certainly answered my prayer and it was not in the way I expected! He rarely does what I expect. He is greater than my expectations. His answer is always better. Certainly, it doesn’t always seem that way when I’m going through a long dark valley. But even when I can’t see the reason for the trouble and I’m struggling to get through it, I have Him. Prayer ALWAYS gives me the peace of God’s presence to still my soul.
Ah, how wonderful is this gift of prayer!
Meditate on this amazing verse:
“Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do NOT know.”
Jeremiah 33:3
The answers to our prayers are things which we do not know. God’s ways are far above our ways. His imagination is greater than ours—just look at what He created!!! This is the kind of God we serve. He has “great and mighty things” to show us. God’s knowledge is so far beyond ours. His power is unparalleled. His love is greater than we are capable of experiencing with any other person.
The gift of prayer is an invitation into the presence of Almighty God.
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