Never Quit Praying

          Give your burdens to the Lord. He will carry them. He will not permit the godly to slip or fall. (Psalm 55:22, Living Bible)

Every night, after going to bed and turning out the lights, I start my nightly prayers – thanking God for all He has done for me, praying for forgiveness for the many transgressions I commit every day, and asking God to grant a long list of favors. Most recently pleading with Him to take away my back pain, but also that my children figure out their lives, that my cat doesn’t have any more seizures, that adequate rain falls, that my husband doesn’t get bored not working over the summer, that there is peace on earth, and that millions of non-believers turn their lives over to Jesus Christ.

So I pray all these things (and more), and I picture God holding out a huge silver platter, nodding and saying, “Offer up all your prayers, place them all on this platter, turn them over to Me.”

And I put all those things on the silver platter.

The next night, in bed again, I start saying my prayers. God shows up, and He’s still carrying that giant platter. And it’s still full of all of the prayers from the night before.

So, I ask Him, “Why are all my prayers still there? Aren’t You at least working on answering them?”

He nods and tells me to just keep praying, keep putting all my requests on the platter.

And I don’t know what to say; I just give Him this look like, “What? Why should I keep praying for this same stuff if You aren’t going to take care of it?”

He nods again and says, “Trust Me. I got this.”

And so it goes, night after night, until I have an epiphany. 

Yes, I keep praying and I know that God is taking all of my requests seriously. And I also know that He can carry that platter no matter how full it is, how heavy all of my prayers are.

I can’t carry it; I can’t even pick it up. I need to keep the faith and trust God in all things. He will always be stronger than me. And He knows how best to answer each and every one of my prayers and when.

Thank You, Lord, God, for always carrying every one of my burdens. Amen

(And the picture is of the largest platter that I have, not that this post has anything to do with Thanksgiving. Except, I guess it does. We need to give thanks every day, not just once a year.)