Prayer is something I never really have been that purposeful about. I pray a lot, but I have the attention span of a two year old. I pray for something once, and then forget all about it. I tell people I’ll pray for them, and half time I won’t remember to. Sometimes God answers prayer and I thank Him for it once but a week later I’ve forgotten all about it. A few weeks ago I realized that I could probably stand to improve in that area. So, I decided to start a prayer journal. Below are the prayers that God has answered so far, both positively and negatively. There are many more that I have written down that I’m still waiting for an answer for, but so far, this is what God has done:
“Yeses”
1. My first prayer request was for some extra money to afford to buy a journal. I had already spent my budgeted spending money, and since my full time job was set to become my part time job, and our income was expected to drop dramatically, I didn’t want to go over budget. Notlong after that I found my spare change stash that had been sitting in a box for about a year and a half, which I used to purchase my journal, and thanked God for providing.
2. Technically this one is still in progress, but one of my first requests was naturally that God would provide enough income in September for Tomo and I to get by. I didn’t have any leads on a new job, so I started a little computer repair business. So far business has been just good enough that God has provided for all our financial needs.
3. That Tomo could take Bible Classes and Calvary Chapel RSM. God opened the doors for her to do so, and she’s now attending.
4. That God would provide a working vehicle for us. My car has been on its last leg for about a year, so I’ve been worried about what would happen when it finally goes out. I thought about trying to do a cash for clunkers deal, and taking out a loan to get a new one, but it just didn’t feel right given that we were trying to get out of debt (school loans) so that we could go on the mission field. I decided to pray about it, and literally about 2 hours later God led a co-worker to call us out of the blue and offer us their old, working car for free. I hadn’t told anyone I needed a car.
5. A friend of mine was raising support to go on a one year internship with Campus Crusade in Japan, doing missions work. He’d been raising support for about 6 months, and he still had about 75% left to raise, and only 2 weeks before he was supposed to leave. Since Campus Crusade works with Students, he had to be over there before the school year started or he would be forced to wait till the following year. I’m still waiting to hear how it all went down, but he’s in Japan, fully supported, God brought in all his remaining support in two weeks.
“No’s”
1. I was praying that a friend of mine would get a job, which he did not get.
The rest are still in process, but looking back at this so far I am totally blown away at how faithful God is to answer prayer. In the grand scheme of things, most of these prayer requests are very small things. But God still listened, provided, and I praise Him for it. I am more confident than ever before that God can take care of His children, that He is taking care of us, and that He will provide for us.
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
1John 5:14-15
This is plain, practical fact.