You visit the earth and water it;
you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
you provide their grain,
for so you have prepared it.
You water its furrows abundantly,
settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
and blessing its growth.
You crown the year with your bounty;
your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.
The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
the hills gird themselves with joy,
the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
the valleys deck themselves with grain,
they shout and sing together for joy.Psalm 65:9-13
I don’t know about you, but I sometimes find myself so easily forgetting to spend time praising God for the things I spent some much time pleading for. This week my husband I were reflecting on the incredible ways we have seen God so clearly answer our prayers in these past couple of months. We realized we have had four “big” requests on our hearts, three of which we have seen God answer in incredible ways! As we talked and reflected on these past weeks, our hearts were filled with so much hope for that fourth request. If God has been so faithful already, we can place our confidence in Him to continue being faithful always.
When we take the time to remember God’s faithfulness and to praise His goodness, not only are we honoring Him, but we are restoring our own hearts! Throughout the Old Testament, God is constantly reminding Israel how He has been faithful to them and beckoning them to just remember. If we will remember the ways He has been faithful to us, we will have our hearts restored and refreshed, so confident that He truly is always with us.
So as we reflected and praised God, our hearts were restored with a new hope. Our prayers become more bold and confident and our faith more certain in the one who has heard our hearts and answered. My husband needed a new car and God provided not only a new car, but the exact car my hubs really wanted! We really could have gotten any car with better gas milage and it would’ve been great, but God provided the one he really wanted. We were struggling hard to convince my medical insurance to cover any of our daughter’s birth and when all hope was lost, we found out they would cover all of it!! Our daughter has had horrible reflux since the week she was born and even after eliminating most of the typical allergens, it was still awful. But we finally figured out that all nuts and bananas were causing most of her issues, got help from an incredible chiropractor, and now she rarely spits up. Praise God for His goodness! Surely He is so faithful to hear our hearts and to answer! We remember these answered prayers and have so much hope as we wait patiently for our fourth “big” prayer request to be answered in this season.
What are some prayer requests you have seen God answer? How do they encourage you to pray with hope for whatever struggles you are facing today?
ESV Single Column Journaling Bible | Winsor and Newton Watercolors
Love this post! And praying with you!