Have faith and pray

1 John 5:14-15 (NLT)
14 And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. 15 And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for.

The Apostle John starts this chapter with a call to continue keeping our faith in Jesus Christ. It is through our faith in Christ that we find our victories and win the battles we face in life. Through Christ we are given the bold ability to come to God with our honest and earnest requests. When we are humble, sincere and ask of God in accordance to His majesty and glory - Christ takes up petition for us with The Father. Knowing we want to give God the glory, knowing we desire to seek His will, and knowing Christ speaks for us gives us the confidence God will hear us and give and answer to our prayer.



In life there are certain expectations you come to believe in. If someone asked, “Has your wife ever misplaced her pocketbook” I could answer with a definite yes. After almost 33 years of marriage I would believe and expect that my wife has either left her pocketbook in the car, on the kitchen table, on the counter next to the stove, on the couch, or on the furniture in the bedroom and that she will spend some amount of time looking for that pocketbook. I have an expectation after looking she will find it in one of those places because that is where she usually leaves it.

Last night my wife ordered dinner out and was going to pick it up. As she would normally do, my wife went to look for her pocketbook in the above mentioned spots. This time however there was no pocketbook to be found. She started to become frantic looking under the cushions of the couch, looking in the trunk of the car, and looking just about any place where she thought she might have left it. All of us joined in the search, still 15 minutes later - no pocketbook. Since she was still looking I suggested I would go pick up the dinner she had ordered.

When I left she gave up looking and prayed for God to lead her to find her pocketbook. As I drove to the restaurant I prayed God would reveal the location of the pocketbook. I believe in prayer, but I must be honest and admit there are times when maybe I’m not so confident about the result.

I picked up our order and returned home. As I drove into the garage, hanging eye level straight before me from a shelf on the wall in the garage was my wife’s pocketbook. If I had asked someone I could not have asked them to put that pocketbook in a more obvious place. I walked in with it in my hand and my wife asked where did I find it and I said, “Right where God put it.” Three of us had walked by that spot several times to look in the car where we thought that pocketbook might be, but we never saw it. God listens and He hears our prayers. We just need to stop, pray and look forward to His answer. Most of all we need to have faith and believe.