When I was in college, my friend Sarah was in the prayer business. She worked for free and saw a huge increase in business right before exams in the spring and fall. Her methods were quite simple. She hung a clipboard on her dorm room door and if you wanted prayer, you wrote your name down and what you needed prayer for.
And then she would pray for you.
Actually she would pray for us.
I was just one of many who put my name on that clipboard. I had no problem asking for prayer. And knowing Sarah as I did, knowing her faith and her devotion to God, I could think of no better person to intercede on my behalf.
My own prayer lists have changed over the years.
When I was in fifth grade, I started making lists of people I wanted God to help. It was the height of the cold war and the first people I asked God to help were the Russians, followed by the Ethiopians, followed by every kid who sat in every class of mine during the school day. I added someone or someones to the list every night until, after a few months, my list was more than three hundred. I couldn’t make it through the list at night without falling asleep.
I was hoarding people in my prayers.
So I cut back. The Russians and Ethiopians failed to make the cut as did most everyone else … I cut way back.
These days my nightly list is only five. I pepper in a few new names here and there as needed. But five names remain on the list every night. They are five former students. Two of the students are miracle children, children who suffered illness and injury and had scores of people praying for them. They survived, the two of them, when at one point they were near death. I pray for them still because every time I pray for them I am reminded that miracles exist, that prayer works, that God is good.
The other three children I pray for are miracles waiting to happen. One graduated the eighth grade at the age of seventeen. Another one had a baby shortly after leaving eighth grade and the third one, the last time I checked, just dropped out of high school. Should any of them ever read this blog post, I want them to know something I wasn't able to tell them when they were my students.
God loves you. God believes in you. I believe in you. Some miracles don’t happen over night. Some miracles are journeys and the blessings God has in store for you are there. They are there, I promise. Be strong. Never lose hope because God walks with you every step you take. You are not alone.
Luke 11:10 says: “For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be open.”
So, for those five children, I ask. For those five, I search. For those five, I knock in the hope that the door will be open for them.
Prayer is a gift and we need to gift it more often.
