Moms in Prayer by Fern Nichols Janet Kobobel Grant

Author:Fern Nichols, Janet Kobobel Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-09-06T16:00:00+00:00

Part 3

Praying as Deep as Your Heart and as Wide as Your World

Chapter 8

Praying According to God’s Promises

A s a child, in my Sunday school class we sang a little chorus,

Every promise in the book is mine,

Every chapter, every verse, every line.

All the blessings of His love Divine.

Every promise in the book is mine.

Is that an overstatement? Are all the promises really ours? When we pray, we need to pray with confidence. And that confidence is based on knowing for sure that the promise we claim is for us today.

When you pray, do you know which promises in Scripture are for us to claim today and which were for a specific people or a specific situation? The differentiation obviously is important to make.

Just because we pray a promise doesn’t guarantee that the prayer will be answered as we expect. Cassandra knows that all too well. Here’s how she tells her story:

“When our children were preschoolers, I met with a dear friend once a week to pray for our four kids. After that, not a year went by that I didn’t lead a prayer group and have a faithful band of women praying for my children, as I prayed for theirs. We prayed God’s promises for our kids, for them to exhibit godly character traits, and of course, for a godly life mate for each of them.

“From a young age our daughter, Melissa, exhibited a strong sense of God’s call on her life. She accepted the Lord at an early age, and even in kindergarten she told her friends about Jesus. During elementary school she read through the Bible several times on her own and memorized large portions of Scripture. Her heart was drawn toward missions, and her goal was to go into some type of Christian service. She was one of those trouble-free kids, and we delighted in her walk with God.

“But sometime during her college years, the spiritual climate of Melissa’s heart must have changed. Since we lived far from the college, we didn’t detect the change. When she graduated from college, the unthinkable happened. She dated a young man from a different religious faith. Despite our expressed concerns, Melissa eventually married him.

“Over the years, God had answered so many prayers on our behalf, but He seemed unmoved by our requests that Melissa marry someone who shared her desire to serve the Lord. The choice of a godly life mate is such an important decision, affecting generations to come. As I reflected on her earlier passion for God, my heart broke.

“Then, as I read through Isaiah, I was struck with the anguish of God’s heart over His wayward daughter, Israel. Every other page was ‘wet with His tears,’ the tears of a Father, exposing His broken heart.

“Finally the light dawned for me: How could I understand God’s broken heart for His world, unless my heart was broken first? Through this I learned to pray from a broken heart for the prodigal world. I realized that what I labeled ‘unanswered’ prayer might truly be a path to knowing God in a more personal way.

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