When I was writing this, I was looking up inspiration about prayer and reading stories
about prayer and texting my friends about how God answered their prayers this week.
And I came across this story about this little girl she was praying and she was at dinner
table with her mom.
Her mom had a bunch of friends over and the mom turned to her six-year-old daughter and
said, would you like to say the blessing?
The girl replied, I wouldn't know what to say.
And the mom said to the daughter, just say what you heard mommy say.
The daughter bowed her head, folded her hands, and said, Lord, why on earth did I invite
all these people to my house?
And I read that story and it kind of reminded me of my mom a little bit.
I'm not going to lie.
But when I was reading over this thing, I started to think about how the Lord has blessed
me this week during prayer.
I've had a really rough week at work.
My boss was away at a seminar and so he put me in place of being temporary manager for
the week.
And I've never done it and he decided to not tell me all what encompasses it.
He just said, you've seen me do it so you just do it.
I'm like, well, we'll see how that goes.
And so it went well for the most part, a couple hiccups here and there, but for the most part,
I was more stressed than anything.
Everything went well.
Nothing bad happened.
Everybody stayed out of trouble.
I work for FedEx and so I was in charge of a bunch of guys driving and delivering packages
and making sure they didn't bring anything back.
And for the most part, we did okay.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
But what I realized is I was just under a lot of stress to be perfect because my boss
has OCD and he loves everything to be perfect to a T.
And so in my head I'm like, if I don't do everything the same way that he would do it,
I'm going to hear about it when he comes back.
And so I was under a lot of stress of how am I going to keep up with 11 drivers on top
of making sure everything goes out, delivered to the right houses, people not hitting anything.
We hit one mailbox.
That's normal.
I'm just going to say that.
That's normal.
So it wasn't more than whatever.
So when he called me this end of the week and he asked me for a week update, because
he was unreachable.
He didn't have his phone in the class.
He had to put it in his car.
So I couldn't text him, ask him questions.
I just had to make a decision and hope that it was the right one.
And so when he was asking me how the week go, I said, well, first off, let's pray before
I tell you how the week went.
And so we prayed together and I started to tell him how the week went.
I said, our numbers were okay.
I said, we could have done better.
And he told me good job because the boss over him, what I didn't know was watching me the
entire week.
I didn't see him.
I didn't know he was around, but he was watching me and he was giving updates to my boss the
entire week.
And so, which is kind of an eerie feeling when you think about it, that like someone's
watching and you don't know about it.
But my boss told me good job, that I did good.
I could say that I could give all myself the credit that I did everything right, that I
knew exactly what I was doing, but I didn't.
Every morning I woke up and I was like, God, please help me during this week.
I said, I need you.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
I was just thrown into 12 feet of water and I have no idea how to swim here.
And so I prayed every single day and when things got hard, I quickly went to the back
of a delivery truck and I was like, Lord, please, it's getting hard.
And so I just want to give all the credit to God that God answered my prayer this entire
week.
Every single time I prayed to him and every single time I bowed my head and lifted my voice
to him, he prayed and he answered my prayer.
So I want you to turn with me to the book of 1 Samuel chapter 1.
Speaking of prayer, I know that this past month was the month of prayer and it was also
Mother's Day.
So I kind of thought of the story that would tie both of those things together well.
So 1 Samuel chapter 1 and we're going to begin in verse 1.
Say amen when you are there.
Verse 1 says, now there was a certain man from Ramathiams of Phim from the hill country
of Ephraim and his name was Alkanai, the son of Jerahim, the son of Elahou, the son of
Tohu, the son of Zuphe and Ephraim.
Right?
I did not make it easy for myself on that one.
He had two wives and one was Hannah and the name of the other one was Penena.
And Penena had children but Hannah had no children.
Now this man would go up from the city yearly to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of
Host in Shiloh and two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas were priests to the Lord there.
When the day come that Alkanai sacrificed, he would give portions to Penena, his wife
and to all of her sons and her daughters but Hannah, he would give a double portion for
he loved the Lord but the Lord had closed her womb.
Her rival however would provoke her bitterly to irritate her because the Lord had closed
her womb.
It happened year after year as often as she went up to the house of the Lord she would
provoke her so she wept and would not eat.
Then Alkanai, her husband, said to her, Hannah, why do you weep and why do you not eat and
why is your heart sad?
Am I not better to you than ten sons?
Then Hannah rose after eating and drinking in Shiloh.
Now Eli, the priest, was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the temple of the Lord.
She greatly distressed, prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly.
She made a vow and said, O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction
of your maidservant and remember me and not forget your maidservant but will give your
maidservant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life and a razor
shall never come on his head.
Now as reading this story, two things stood out to me.
The first thing that stood out to me was don't we all have someone in our life that just
likes to irritate us a little bit?
That they do it on purpose?
That they find that one thing that we know that we're sensitive about and they just keep
going at it?
Something that stood out to me is Hannah never retaliated.
She never turned around and bit her head off or snapped at her and was like, can you just
stop talking?
Every single time this happens, you come up to me and you're just nasty.
Can you not do that?
She never once said that.
Was she sad?
Yes.
Was she heartbroken?
Yes.
And year after year she had to look forward to this.
She had to look forward to this moment of all these great things were happening and
yes she got double portioned but that's not what she was worried about because all these
people around her have these things that she just wanted that one thing that everybody
else had.
The other thing that stood out to me was that Elkanah, her husband, asked her what was wrong.
So she was fighting this battle alone.
He knew that she didn't have a son.
He knew that they didn't have any kids.
But in my mind the way that I read this story is it doesn't seem like she was talking about
it a lot.
She wasn't talking about her sadness a lot.
She wasn't outwardly spoken about this battle and this challenge that she was going through.
And we all have things like that.
We all have things that we like to keep close to our chest.
We don't like to talk about our struggles.
We don't like the real struggles.
Like we like to complain about work and our neighbor and our brothers.
I have had my sheriff talking about my brothers.
I have five of them.
So my mom knows.
But we have these things that are so specific and so sensitive that we feel a little bit
embarrassed to talk about them.
We talk about church.
We talk about work.
We talk about friends.
But there's one thing in each and every single person's life that we're not really too keen
on.
You know what?
I'm just going to tell everybody about this.
I haven't prayed for it.
It reminded me of this time in my life where it seemed like everything was going backwards.
Where we, and I talk about this a lot, but it's significant in my life because we were
raised Baptist.
And when we were leaving the church, all of our family, we all went to this one church.
Both my aunts, my cousins, we were raised in this church.
And when we decided that we were leaving the church, people weren't too happy.
My mom was a Sunday school teacher and I was starting to teach the teen class at that church.
And so there were a lot of people relying on us to hold things up because we were put
in a place of position.
And when we told them that we were studying the Sabbath, they didn't like that very much.
And it got very nasty, I'll just say that.
But we knew that this was what God was telling us to do.
We knew that we were following God's word.
And when you truly know that God's speaking to you and leading you down a path, are you
going to say no?
I mean, we can all be a Jonah, but we know how that ended.
Jonah came back, right?
But we chose to leave the church, we chose to follow what God was telling us.
But I was young at that age.
I was what, 14, somewhere around there.
And when we came to the church, I remember we were doing VBS.
And I remember the first person I met coming into this church was Julie Cameron.
She was back there and she was, you go here, you go here, you go here, okay, we have this,
we have that.
Everything ready.
And my mom was like, okay, this is the perfect way to get them in this church.
You go help do whatever she needs you to do.
So all five of us were at different stations.
We were in crafts.
I think I was leading around the two to three year olds.
But it was this way of giving us a reason to be somewhere.
But in my mind as a 13 or 14 year old, I can't remember how old, but around that age, in
my mind I was like, I don't want to be here.
This is not my home.
This is not my church.
I don't believe this way.
And of course I didn't know exactly what I believed because I was 14.
I was just in that stage still of like, okay, my mom said, get up, we're going to church.
I was still in that motion.
But at that time I felt myself getting angrier and angrier and angrier every single time
we had to wake up and go to church.
Because I'm like, I do not want to go to that church.
I don't know those people.
They don't know me.
That's not my family.
And I went through these years of just being hateful.
And I never once prayed.
I never once talked to God because I felt like, I don't want to talk to you because
you did this.
You spoke to my mom.
How dare you do that?
And I was like, my mom loves you.
She's going to listen to you.
So how dare you speak to her without telling me?
And I was being very selfish about it.
I wasn't letting my mom follow God the way that she needs to.
Because I know I was not really the easiest person to deal with.
Being slow on Sabbath mornings, not getting dressed, coming up the stairs wearing shorts
and a t-shirt, but I'm ready for church.
No, you're not ready for church.
But I remember thinking back now, I never once stopped and prayed and asked God to take
away this hatred out of my heart.
Because if you think about it and I look back at it, there was no reason for me to be angry.
Because we were following God's word.
We were following what God was telling us to do.
So how in the world could I be angry at that?
I was being selfish.
So as time went on, we joined Pathfinders.
And once again, I saw all these kids being happy because this is their life.
This is what they do.
And they've been doing this for years.
And they grew up in adventurers and became Pathfinders.
And then there's me who has no idea what's going on.
All these people have their cliques.
They'll have their friends or whatever.
And so me and all five of my rambunctious brothers just come in there and just start wreaking
havoc on everything.
I remember we came in there and we didn't listen to...
Mom, just let you know.
I don't know if you know this.
But we didn't listen to any of the rules.
We made our Pathfinder leader work harder than it needed to be.
In the honors, the knot tying honor, we didn't do any of the knots.
We just kept tying shoelace knots.
And he's like square knot, whatever.
It was always just shoelace knots.
And I just remember it, choosing to be that way, choosing to let my actions reflect how
I felt on the inside.
And again, I never stopped and prayed.
And my mom raised us to pray.
My mom raised us to number one, pray when things get hard.
And then number two, she also raised it if we don't have anything nice to say, don't
say anything at all.
Now I didn't follow either one of those.
But as time went on when I was around 17, I had this girlfriend that I met in Pathfinders
and it was just to fit in.
I didn't know her really.
She didn't know me.
It was just so I could fit in and be cool because everybody had these little crushes
or whatever.
So I was like if that's what they're doing, I'm going to do that to fit in.
And so 17, that all went down the toilet because obviously I was maturing and growing and I
was like this is not what I'm supposed to be doing.
And so I sat there and prayed right back there at the AV booth.
And I prayed for the first time in five years.
I was like, Lord, if this is where we are supposed to be, if we are doing your will
for our lives, please take this hatred and selfishness out of my heart.
And I sat there and prayed and if I'm being honest, I don't even know what the sermon
was about.
I was just having my own little thing going on back there.
And I remember looking up when I was done praying and it felt like nobody else was in
the room.
And I remember the pastor looking, what it felt like right down at me, like right in
my eyes when I looked up and he said, patience and prayer.
And what got into my head was even though I wasn't praying, I know that there was someone
praying for me.
I know that there was one person praying for me, at least one person praying for me because
they saw what was going on.
They saw how angry I was.
They knew what was going on.
They knew how hard it was.
And that one person was praying and I can't help but thank the patience in that prayer.
The patience that it took for five years for me to finally sit back there and realize that
this is all me.
I'm making this harder than it is.
I'm making this decision to not believe that this is where God's telling us to be.
And so when I looked up and he looked right at me and he said patience and prayer, I just
felt this huge weight lifted off of me.
And I immediately prayed again and again and again and I prayed for forgiveness.
I prayed for wisdom.
I prayed for all these problems to go away.
I prayed for my family.
I prayed for my brothers.
I prayed for all the people that I've just been a complete and utter butt munch to this
entire five years of my life.
I just prayed that these people would find it some way in their heart to forgive me.
And after that prayer I just started seeing myself get happier and happier, waking up
first to come to church, be ready to go.
And I realized that I was the one in the wrong.
I realized that I was the one who was making it hard for my mom to make a decision where
she was following the Lord.
It's probably my number one regret that I was that hard to deal with.
And I know I was.
She can sit here and tell me that I was the golden child but I know I wasn't.
And so when it came to prayer and I had that little crush in Pathfinders or whatever and
I was like, you know I was a boy, you kind of like when you're single you pray, you know,
like God send me somebody, you know.
And so I remember one night I was single for three years and I remember one night I was
like, you know what God, I'm tired of being single.
All my friends are having these five year relationships.
Some of them are getting married.
And I remember sitting there and praying one night.
I was like, Lord, if it's your will please send me someone so I can walk through this
life with in you.
And I remember as soon as I said amen, my wife now, Angelica, she DM'd me on Instagram.
She slid into my DMs.
And I remember the first thing I did was not open it.
I just read like the little first part that you could see like where your phone's closed
or whatever and I ran straight into my mom's room and I was like, mom, look, look, look,
I prayed and he answered and he answered.
And she's like, slow down.
You don't even know this girl.
And I was like, yes, but I met her.
And I remember just being over the moon that finally it felt like when I believed in prayer
and when I chose that even though it didn't seem like God was answering my prayers or
anybody else's prayers, he was still working.
And now that I'm seeing it, I'm feeling that he answers prayers.
And I remember texting Angelica back.
She said I was cool, so just let you guys know I'm cool.
But I remember texting her back.
I was like, hey, I was like, it would be cool to hang out.
And funny enough, I actually became friends with her mom first before I even like started
really hanging out with her.
So hint, become friends with the mom first.
It really works.
Especially if they're just alike, because let me tell you something, they're just alike.
But I remember taking, fast forward a few years, we're married and we're living in Atlanta.
And I remember, because finances are hard.
Obviously, when you're young and you aren't really settled in and things are changing
and we're constantly changing, finances are hard.
Still are.
And I'm experiencing that now because they still are.
But I remember one time we were really, really struggling.
And I'm sure a lot of you can attest to this, that when finances get hard, everything gets
hard.
It's hard to wake up and be happy with the person that you're dealing with these finances
with.
It's hard to look at the person and say, you're the reason because you won't stop going to
Starbucks.
Or they're looking at you saying, you're the reason our finances are bad because you keep
spinning it on hair gel.
It's these things that go back and forth like you, you, you, you're doing this.
And I remember us sitting together in the living room and I was realizing that we haven't
prayed about the situation.
We talk big game about prayer.
We talk about giving it to God, like God's in control.
Are we really giving God control when we don't lift it up to Him?
And so I remember us taking, both at the same time come to this realization that, hey, we're
just arguing for no reason.
We're not really mad at each other.
Like your Starbucks addiction isn't really going to like put us in the hole that bad.
But we took a step back and we were like, let's pray.
And we prayed and we had bills on top of bills due.
We had bills that were supposed to happen last week.
We were supposed to have bills that were supposed to happen that day, yesterday, tomorrow.
And we were just swamped.
And I remember us praying.
I was like, Lord, please provide.
Please provide.
Only you can help us out of this situation because we were so bad off that the only person
who could do anything was God.
And so we prayed.
And then the next morning I woke up and I went to go log into all my little things so
I could pay all the bills and all the bills were paid.
I thought it was a cruel joke.
I thought I woke up and I was like, maybe I logged into the wrong account.
I was like, maybe I logged into somebody else's account that is on top of their stuff, but
this isn't me.
And I went to the next thing and the next thing, checked the next thing and the next
thing and every single one of our bills were paid.
And I remember just weeping.
I was like, there's no way.
And again, I was doubting.
I was doubting that God provides.
I was doubting in the power in prayer.
And I remember Angelica calling me, like literally as I'm crying, searching through my phone
if this is real, she's calling me.
She's like, have you checked this?
Have you checked this?
I'm like, I'm looking at it right now.
I was like, are you seeing this too?
This isn't some dream that I'm dreaming.
And in that moment I realized that moment changed my life forever.
That moment made prayer even more important to me.
That no matter what I'm going through, even in the smallest things to the biggest thing,
that we need to pray about it.
And then I started to realize as I was going through this, writing this sermon, I was like,
what do we pray about?
What do we pray for?
Do we pray for God to provide things for us?
Do we pray to God to take away things?
Do we pray before we come to church that we get something out of the lesson of Sabbath
school?
Do we pray before we come into the sanctuary that we get something out of the sermon?
Do we pray when things get hard?
Do we pray when things are going easy?
For me, I kind of fell out of that rotation of like praying when things are easy.
Because it seems like a lot of times I prayed was when things were going hard.
And in this, when I'm writing this sermon and after this situation of God providing
in the biggest way in my life, I realized that we need to start praying and praising
God for the things that He does in our life and that He has done.
And giving Him praise because He is the great provider.
But do we praise Him for being the great provider?
Do we take a step back and give thanks to Him for providing all these things?
And then I asked myself this question.
In those moments when we pray and it feels like God doesn't hear us, when God doesn't
listen, when God doesn't answer those prayers, do we think that God didn't answer that prayer?
Or did He not give us the answer that we wanted?
Because I know that in my life I've prayed for a lot of things and I didn't get the
answer that I wanted.
So I'm like, maybe He just didn't hear me that time.
Maybe my prayer wasn't loud enough.
It like got almost there and didn't reach the heavens quite yet.
No He answered the prayer, He just didn't give me the answer I wanted.
When He takes all these things in my life that I don't need that aren't helping my relationship
with Him, it's hard to accept the fact that that was the answer to prayer that I needed.
And then there's the, I call it the motions prayer.
The prayer right before you eat, you know, God bless this food and it's in our bodies.
And then maybe before you go to bed, like help us get a good sleep.
Like these prayers that you just pray because it's just, you just do it.
There's power in those prayers as well.
And I realized that in the smallest moments, my friend, it made me think of my friend who
prays before we go on any car ride.
Even if it's down the street to the Dollar Tree, he doesn't even buckle in before he's
already like, all right, let's pray.
And I made fun of him for the longest time.
I'm like, we're going two minutes down the road, my guy.
I'm like two minutes.
I could walk there and be back before you get done with your prayer.
I made fun of him for it.
But now I'm realizing that he has the strongest relationship of God that I've ever seen in
one of my personal friends because he believes in the power of prayer.
He believes in the patience of prayer.
And he told me a story that the reason he started praying before every single car ride
was because his mom was a huge, huge, she like didn't, she didn't believe in prayer.
She wasn't a really religious person.
And he told me that he prayed for his mom every single time she left the house.
And he said that one time his mom and him got into an argument and he didn't pray for
her before she left.
And she got into a car accident.
She was going down the street to go pick up her medication and come back two minutes down
the road.
And he told me this story and it brought back all these moments of me making fun of him
about two minute trips down the road.
And who am I to take away the power of someone else's prayer?
Because we all pray differently.
Some of us pray quick, some of us pray long, some of us pray for nonspecific things, some
of us pray for very specific things.
But that is your prayer, that is your conversation with God.
And it is important to come as a congregation and pray, but it's also important to pray
in isolation.
And that is something that I have really, really done this week.
And let me tell you something, God is there.
When you come to Him and humble yourself and say to Him, only you can take care of these
situations that I'm going through, He shows up every single time.
Without you realizing it, without you feeling it, in the end He always shows up.
Often our prayers include the words in Jesus' name.
Yet, do we ever stop to think about what it means to pray in His name?
To pray in Jesus' name means to pray with His authority.
To pray in Jesus' name also means praying according to the will of God.
In doing so, we ask God to act upon our daily prayers.
The Bible even tells us to pray in Jesus' name.
In John chapter 14 verses 13 to 14 it says, I will do whatever you ask in my name so that
my Father may be glorified in the Son.
If in my name you ask for anything, I will do it.
And again in John chapter 16 verse 24 it says, until now you have not asked for anything
in my name.
Asking you will receive so that your joy may be complete.
He tells us.
These are just two instances.
Now if you go back to the book of Samuel and starting at verse 19 and you can read it.
She gave birth to a son.
She gave birth to a son named Samuel.
And what's so special about the name Samuel is Samuel means God has heard.
And I thought that was so beautiful when I read that because you know we read these stories
of Samuel and read these stories but when you go back and read it and actually like
sit down and like try to like get something out of it like you learn something new every
single time.
So when I found out that Samuel means God has heard I thought that was beautiful.
To pray in Jesus' name means to pray with his authority.
Because God has authority to move mountains.
So when it feels like our challenges are hard and we can't just get past and we can't get
around and we can't move that mountain by ourself it is important to realize that God
has authority to move that mountain for us.
It's important to realize that Jesus knew the outcome before he even went into the situation.
It's important to realize that the moment that we're doubting if we've made the right
decision this week when I was making decisions I'm like is that the right decision.
That God already knew that whatever decision I made he already had it in his control.
So that's something for us to remember that when we pray we're praying in his authority.
So when I pray for my brother to maybe slip and slide on the sidewalk and hurt himself
just a little bit there's authority in that prayer and maybe it did happen but that's
besides the point.
But there's authority in prayer.
There's authority in when we say in Jesus' name let it be when we pray for sickness when
we pray for health when we pray for finances we need to realize that God will do it.
He says it right here if in my name you ask for anything I will do it.
So let's just not make these these these throw the mill run of the mill whatever you want
to say prayers let them be real let them be actual supplication to God.
We often close our prayer in Jesus name amen but God listens to us regardless.
The retune and formula of the prayer are not why God listens to us.
He doesn't listen to us because we say dear heavenly father or dear Jesus whatever we
start our prayer as long as we have this intention that we're lifting it up to God to hear our
prayer and praise that he's going to hear us no matter what we say.
I think it's important that kids pray as well we have at my church in Alpharetta we have
these kids I love to pray and he just mumbles every single time he gets the mic and holds
it real close to his mouth and he's like every single time but there's power in that prayer
too because the Lord knows what he's saying the Lord knows what's on his heart so why
wouldn't God know what's on our heart when we enunciate every single word when we say
all these big fancy words during prayer when we have these 15 minutes prayers God hears
it all two minute prayers 50 minute prayers what is important is the purpose of prayer
the love we put in our words as we pray to him is why he listens so that is why it is
so important to give back to him it is so important to praise him because if we're just
asking asking asking he's going to answer because he's God but what is that going to
do to us what is that going to do with our relationship with God when he just becomes
the provider when he doesn't when he's not the heavenly father when he's not the protector
when he's not the great mediator when he's not the great physician what happens if he's
just the provider do we take him for granted because I have in Philippians chapter 4 that
my brother read so very eloquently be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God and the peace of God
which surpasses all comprehension will guard your heart and your minds in Christ Jesus
in these two verses it really sums up what I'm trying to say that no matter what you're
going through whether you're anxious everything in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving
let your request be made known to God and God has a peace that surpasses all comprehension
that no matter what you're going through Jesus has the answer he has the remedy but when
that is taken care of when God takes care of that what do we do do we just go on with
our normal life do we say that's what God does we need to remember to give thanks to
him so that is my challenge to myself and us this week as we pray let's remember to
not only pray to ask for things of God because that's what he's there for lay everything
at my feet and I will give you rest that's what he says but let's also remember to give
him thanks because he is God he is our heavenly father and he's always there for us even
if we don't really talk to him that much that he's waiting for us to come back to him and
talk to him.