Lost Prayers

(Reflections from "Our Daily Bread")

The headline read:  UNANSWERED PRAYERS: LETTERS TO GOD FOUND DUMPED IN OCEAN.

The letters, three hundred in all and sent to a New Jersey minister, had been tossed in the ocean, most of them unopened.  The minister was long dead.  How the letters came to be floating in the surf off the New Jersey shore is a mystery.

The letters were addressed to the minister because he had promised to pray.  Some of the letters asked for frivolous things; others were written by anguished spouses, children, or widows.  They poured out their hearts to God, asking for help with relatives who were abusing drugs and alcohol, or spouses who were cheating on them.  One asked God for a husband and father to love her child.  The reporter concluded that all were "unanswered prayers."

Not so!! If those letter-writers cried out to God, He heard each one of them.  Not one honest prayer is lost to His ears.  "You know what I long for, Lord," David wrote in the midst of a deep personal crisis, "you hear my every sigh" (Ps. 38:9).  David understood that we can cast all our cares on the Lord, even if no one else prays for us.  He confidently concluded, "I will call to you whenever I'm in trouble, and you will answer me" (Ps 86:7).

Lord, you hear my every prayer, even my thoughts that I can't put into words.  Thank you for always hearing my prayers and answering them as you know is for my good.