It might not look like it, but these cardboard cartons are full of answered prayers. I know there are children around the world who will be praying for pencils, and these boxes are full of them (116,640 of them, to be exact.) We prayed for a good deal on pencils for our Operation Christmas Child boxes and these are some of God's "yes" answers. They showed up at our storage container today and God even kept the rain away until they were safely unloaded.
Actually, we've been seeing a lot of those "yes" answers lately. Our OCC area team here in Northwestern PA has been praying for more than three years for a network coordinator to oversee our shoe box drop-off sites (relay centers and collection centers) and for years God has been saying "not yet" and/or "wait". But...as of this past weekend we now have two men who are willing to share this job. God's amazing "yes" times two!
Items have been coming in for our upcoming shoe box party--almost 1,000 stuffed animals just in the past week--and a chance came to order a huge load of nice cloth visors.
And these answered prayers have made me think about the faithful prayers of a group of adults at the church where I grew up. Those adults prayed for a spiritual revival in the youth of our church and, wow, did God answer them with a resounding "yes"!
Their prayers were answered when a group of about a dozen of us high schoolers began meeting early every Sunday morning (I think it was 7:30, but I'm not positive) for passionate prayer in our pastor's study. We crowded that room and we cried out to God and He gave us a ton of "yes" answers that catapulted all of us into lives of Christian service.
More than four decades later I think about so many of us who once prayed in that room--now scattered around the country and still serving the Lord. We are blessed by marriages that have survived 40 years or more, with some working in full-time Christian ministry roles that have lasted nearly that long. Others never became vocational ministers but are blessed to serve as choir directors, Sunday school teachers, and missions supporters.
I think of how many blessings have come to our lives and to the lives of those we have all been able to serve because of the prayers of those adults who committed to pray for revival. What an investment they made!
I'm challenged to pray like that for the young people in my life and in my church. Someday in heaven I want to share in the ministry of those who will come after me...because I prayed and waited for God to say, "yes!"
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