As we finish the Digging Deep study on prayer, I am praying. I’m praying that the practical impact of the study will draw us to the throne more frequently and more fervently. The Word is bursting with the power and promise in prayer, teeming with its comfort and solace. If Christian women can be more prayerful, we can be more fit for service here and, ultimately, more fit for heaven. May His blessings be on the last days and chapters of this study and on it’s resounding influence on the future days of every single woman who has studied. I’m praying this!
We will officially close this year’s “Unto Thee, O Lord” study on Tuesday, August 25th at 8:15 EST with our “Sweet Hour of Prayer.” We will spend this session in prayer for the needs of sisters around the country (and world). We hope you will join us in prayer and, if you have needs—struggles of any kind—for which you’d like us to pray, you may bring them to that session or you may email them ahead of time to ddprayers2015@gmail.com. You will be able to access this session live at http://livestream.com/whcoc/for-women. We will also post the prayer requests, (unless you request anonymity) after the session, on the Digging Deep for Encouragement Facebook page, so that all sisters can be praying.
Earlier, on that same day, you will be able to watch the August podcast live from Polishing the Pulpit at the same web address. It is scheduled for 2:30 pm EST. Please plan to join us for that session as we kick off the brand new study that begins on September 1st. Please share this article with as many sisters as possible so that we may be able to maximize any good that may come from the new Digging Deep study. Encourage your friends to join us as we start a brand new year of growing together in the Word. I’m working to try and have the study ready to go on the 25th. Hard copies will be available at the PTP session as well as the study’s being posted on the Digging Deep in God’s Word Facebook page at that time.
This past week, I’ve had the privilege of studying with Magdalena. She is a woman with a deeply good heart who readily accepted the Will of God and was baptized last Thursday. Praise God for her salvation! The studies were long and a bit laborious because of language barriers. Every word that I said had to be translated from English to Spanish as did every question that she asked…only in the reverse. The studies took twice the time of usual studies because we had to have mediation. Everything had to pass through the “middle man”…the translator.
It occurs to me that our prayers to God require mediation. There is a sense in which they pass through Jesus Christ, the mediator, before they reach the ears of God. Yet, as He has in all things, God has perfected the avenue of prayer. My plea to the Father can travel outside of this material universe into a realm that is void of time and matter. It can go through the mediation of one who has been man and always is God. In that mediation, my prayer becomes fit for the ears of the Father. And He hears my prayers. But “prayer travel” doesn’t take time. He hears my prayers as I speak them or even as I “think” them. These days we throw around the word “amazing”, but He IS!
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen. (Romans 11:33-36).