Saturday, June 9, 2012

The Prayer Jar

My dad used to say to me, “the easiest thing in the world to do is to turn off your alarm clock and go back to sleep.”  Everyday, we all experience that alarm clock going off and will it to explode and disappear forever.  It’s also easy to start the day with a glum and negative attitude when we’d rather just stay in bed and sleep the day away.  One day, I woke up and decided that my own negative attitude was draining the life out of me and decided to change.  Instead of complaining about nothing ever going my way or nothing good ever happens to me, I decided to be happy.  Simply happy, for no reason at all.  I suddenly noticed a lot of good things were happening around me and then good things started happening to me.  I started smiling more and had more energy.  Not so long ago, I noticed many negative things happening in my life and started to get down on myself.  I started to get down on God for allowing bad things to happen to me.  The other day, I read a daily devotion about a prayer jar. Doris Speer writes her requests to God and puts them in a jar.  Then when she needs to, she pulls out the requests and sees how many prayers God has answered for her.

So I began to write a prayer journal.  I keep it with my Bible.  I don’t write specifics or write a long story, just short tidbits of something I prayed about. How easy is it to blame God for all the bad things happening around us and when we’re in a bad mood, it’s much easier to focus on the negative?  God answers so many little prayers for us all throughout the day.  Didn’t you find your keys when they were lost?  There was a parking spot right up front at the store when it was raining?  Your child came home safe and sound from school?  You made it to payday so you could buy groceries?
The next day, I reviewed the recent list of prayers and started to draw a cross by the ones that God had answered for me. Then it dawned on me, God answers so many prayers for me but I often forget to thank Him for many of them.  So now, when I look back on my list of prayers, I’m reminded to thank God for all the crosses drawn in my prayer journal.
“Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”  Mark 11:24

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