Approaching Easter: Eternal Prayers

As I enter this time of prayer, I repeat the words of Psalm 61:1–2, slowly, several times, making them my prayer to God:

‘Hear my cry, O God;

listen to my prayer.

From the ends of the earth I call to you,

I call as my heart grows faint;

lead me to the rock that is higher than I.’

Pause and repeat

Pause to read the passage: Rev. 5:8–9

‘It’s awesome to imagine that our unanswered prayers—all the frustrations, the tears, the dashed hopes—are being stored up by God in those golden bowls and may, eventually, become our most powerful contribution to the world. Let me say it again: our unanswered prayers may be the real ministry of our lives. As Tim Chester writes in The Message of Prayer: “Prayers we think of as directed to the present are in fact being stored up to be answered on the final day”’*, **

The prospect of my pain contributing to some other miracle at some other time for someone else may not be very comforting right now, but isn’t it reassuring to know that my prayers are not wasted? That they are accumulating credit in heaven? That every single one is remembered, cherished, and ultimately deployed by God?

Pause and reflect

Take a little time to pray ‘the same old prayer’ you’ve prayed a thousand times before, but this time picture it rising like incense from one of those great golden bowls before the Lord.

Pause and pray

As I bring this time with God to a close, I pray the words of the hymn ‘It Is Well with My Soul’ by Horatio Spafford:

And Lord haste the day, when the faith shall be sight,

The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;

The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,

Even so, it is well with my soul.

Amen.

*Pete Greig, God on Mute, David C Cook, (Colorado Springs, 2020), p261

** Tim Chester, The Message of Prayer (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 243.