Prayer Changes Meናሙና

“How do I pray? Do I pray believing that the Doctor's verdict is unchangeable? Are my prayers more like a coin dropped in a wishing well, cross my fingers, and hope for the best?” I came across these words I scrawled in my journal a few years ago. My brother’s sickness, friends struck with cancer passing away, and many other pressing concerns were turning into layers and layers of prayer coating the irritants of my life. Yet, the lustrous pearl was still elusive, nowhere in sight.

Prayer changed me. I couldn’t see beyond the paper and ink of my journal, and I was desperate for God to break through the clouds and answer me. I felt powerless and many times hopeless in light of these circumstances, but I prayed.

Nehemiah did the same. Nehemiah 6: 9 says, “But I prayed, “Now strengthen my hands.'”

His enemy was relentless; Nehemiah knew the power of prayer, so he prayed and kept working.

I, too, asked for strength. I also asked God to help me overcome my unbelief as I learned to trust His heart; His plans. He didn’t care about how eloquent my prayers were or how mixed up they sounded; all He wanted was for me to entrust my prayers to Him, desiring that His will be done.

Entrusting our wishes is not always easy when our feet hit the ground, the ticking clock dictating our pace, and deadlines fast approaching. Yet, the same God who came to Abraham and Sarah at the appointed time, the same God who strengthened Nehemiah’s hands, who met Zechariah in the temple, will also come to us.

The God of Abraham said, “At the appointed time, I will return to you.” So we pray, and we wait. He is always on time.