Some names have popped randomly into my mind lately. Some of them are people I haven't seen or heard from in years. And when I say years, I mean that they have no idea I am married and have children kind of years. Others are friends I simply have not spoken to in a few weeks or months, while still others are people I communicate with on a regular basis.
Slowly I have learned to pray whenever names pop into my mind like that. Recently that has happened a lot with one particular friend. She comes to mind. I pray. Within a day or two I get a text message from her specifically asking me to pray. I love that because it grows my faith, strengthens my communication with Jesus, binds my friend and I together more strongly even across the miles, and covers her with the blanket of prayer she needs.
It doesn't always happen just like that, though. There are some people I feel strongly compelled to pray for, knowing I might never know why I was compelled to pray. I might never speak to that friend again this side of heaven. All I know is that the prayers I pray for the friend I chat with regularly build my faith so that I have the listening skills necessary to pray for the long lost friends as well.
There are things we will never know this side of heaven. We may never know why we suffer in certain ways or why God does not miraculously show His mighty hand in others. To this day I have no idea why God chose to allow the sale of our Mississippi house to go the way it did when we had been praying for years that He would be glorified through our possession and sale of that house. I cannot see how He was glorified. Did He answer that prayer? I have to believe He did, or perhaps is still answering that prayer. But I cannot see how.
We might go through the rest of our lives not understanding why God led us in a certain direction or closed specific doors. Recently I was asked to go on a mission trip with some precious friends. I would love to have gone with them, ministering side by side with them. But God confirmed in more ways than I can express that I was not to go with them, and He filled my heart with peace when I accepted His confirmation. I have no idea why I cannot make the trip with them. It makes little sense to me why He chose them and not me. Maybe I will find out soon, but it is possible that I will simply have to accept His answer and obey the other things He has put before me in the coming weeks and months.
In the same way, I may never know how my prayers might impact an old friend with whom I no longer have contact. I simply have to trust that they will. In another week my friend might have totally slipped from my mind again, but for now I pray because I must obey.
How must you obey today? What prompting has God set before you? A prompt to pray? A prompt to speak to someone? A prompt to act in some way?
As you obey, you may never see results of your action. You might never know why you were prompted in that way. But your obedience will result in your growth. You will be strengthened and encouraged, even if just simply by the peace the flows through you as soon as you take the step. Your listening abilities will grow, and You will hear the Holy Spirit much more readily as His thoughts pour over you. And the Lord will let you see His hand working enough to remind you that He works just as powerfully even when you cannot see what He is doing.
May we be obedient today, whether we can see the results or not.
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