Self-Expression Through Prayer

At each of my daughters weddings I received the most delightful revelation. At both weddings I was invited to welcome everyone at the reception and then pray before we ate. At each wedding, as I reached the podium and looked at my daughter and her new husband I realized something: "this is the one I have been praying about all of these years!"

Let me explain. When I first became a christian I was about thirty years old and my daughters were 3 and 5. I was excited about everything to do with my new found faith. I devoured my bible and read books telling me how other christians led their lives. One christian woman said how she started praying for the spouse of each of her children, while those children were still young. I decided I would do that too! And so I started praying for a little boy I hadn't met yet, but who God had already chosen for each of my girls.

Don't get me wrong, I am not some big spiritual giant who spends hours on their knees every day. But I do believe in prayer and sometimes make a point of spending some time in prayer, and other times, I just pray as I go along in my day, around the house, in the car, or on a walk. I was praying for a boy who neither my daughters or I had met yet. I don't know just what I prayed for him, I guess whatever came to mind at the time.

So, back to the weddings...there I was up at the podium and looked over at each of these young men, and it came to me "He is the one! He is the one I was praying for all these years!" I had forgotten all about it until then (I often forget what I have prayed about, which is why I keep a list). I was overcome with what God had done. So where there was once on my prayer list "future husband for my daughters", I have a name instead, but God knew who I was praying about all of those years.

Do you ever hope for something that doesn't happen the way you want it? Maybe you hope you will pass an exam but you fail. That hope has been "deferred", which just means that you didn't get what you wanted. Sometimes however, you hope for something which hasn't exactly been denied, it just hasn't come about yet.

Proverbs 13:12 says "Hope deferred makes the heart sick...." which sort of means that when our dreams get shattered, we are heartbroken. I have had a dream shatter and I know just what that means and how that feels.

Prayer however is different from hope. Hope is more like a daydream in some ways, whereas prayer is a specific request made to God. I have nothing against daydreaming, it is a lovely little depression getaway. But turning those daydreams to God (who probably gave you the dreams in the first place) is a more efficient and productive way of dreaming.

Prayer is a great form of self-expression. I would like to encourage you today to take every one of your dreams and make it into a prayer (write them down so you don't forget!) and wait and see what God will do!

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? How are you feeling today? Do you pray? Would you pray if you could be certain that God would hear you and answer you?

Don't give up! There is hope for depression.