Continue Steadfastly

As Dave and I drove home this evening, passing by the beautiful church on the hill near our home, we talked about how we've prayed for ten years for someone in our life.

There were many times during these ten years when it seemed like our prayers didn't affect anything.

But recently we saw this friend, and got to see with our own eyes, and hear with our own ears, some of miraculous transformation God has done over these ten years. It's truly beautiful!

Colossians 4:2 says, "Continue steadfastly in prayer..."

While we don't earn answers to prayers by our persistence, God does call us to persevere in prayer. And through doing so, our requests move from the natural realm to the spiritual realm, where God hears and answers.

Do I understand exactly how prayer works? Or why it is that He tells us to pray continuously and steadfastly? No! I just know that it's His way lined out in His Word. So I persevere in prayer.

There are a lot of unanswered prayers requests on my list of things that I pray about these days; some of those things have been on the list for longer than ten years.

But our time with this friend, that we've prayed for over these past ten years, gives me courage and strength to persevere in prayer for other things that seem to be stuck right now.

We don't know when it might be God's timing to open the floodgates and answer; and my prayers might be part of opening those floodgates. I wouldn't want to miss out on being part of God's plan to do that!