December 18, 2021 7:00 pm
In the large African church, the pastor fell to his knees, praying to God. “Remember us!” As the pastor pleaded, the crowd responded, crying, “Remember us, Lord!” Watching this moment on YouTube, I was surprised that I shed tears, too. The prayer was recorded months earlier. Yet it recalled childhood times when I heard our family’s pastor make the same plea to God. “Remember us, Lord!”
Hearing that prayer as a child, I’d wrongly assumed that God sometimes forgets about us. But God is all-knowing (Psalm 147:5; 1 John 3:20), He always see us (Psalm 33:13–15), and He loves us beyond measure (Ephesians 3:17–19).
Even more, as we see in the Hebrew word zakar, meaning “remember,” when God “remembers” us, He acts for us. Zakar also means to act on a person’s behalf. Thus, when God “remembered” Noah and “all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark,” He then “sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded” (Genesis 8:1). When God “remembered” barren Rachel, He “listened to her and enabled her to conceive. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son” (Genesis 30:22–23).
What a great plea of trust to ask God in prayer to remember us! He will decide how He answers. We can pray knowing, however, that our humble request asks God to move.
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Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Today's reading, titled Remembered in Prayer, was written by Patricia Rabin. In the large African church, the pastor fell to his knees, praying to God, Remember us! As the pastor pleaded, the crowd responded, crying, Remember us, Lord!
Watching this moment on YouTube, I was surprised that I shed tears too. The prayer was recorded months earlier, yet it recalled childhood times when I heard our family's pastor make the same plea to God, Remember us, Lord! Hearing that prayer as a child, I'd wrongly assume that God sometimes forgets about us.
But God is all-knowing. He always sees us and He loves us beyond measure. Even more as we see in the Hebrew word Zakar, meaning remember, when God remembers us, He acts for us.
Zakar also means to act on a person's behalf. Thus, when God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with Him in the ark, He then sent a wind over the earth and the waters receded. When God remembered Bear and Rachel, He listened to her and enabled her to conceive.
She became pregnant and gave birth to a son. What a great plea of trust to ask God in prayer to remember us. He'll decide how He answers. We can pray knowing, however, that our humble request asks God to move. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Genesis chapter 30 verses 1 through 2 and 22 through 24. When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, Give me children or I'll die. Jacob became angry with her and said, Am I in the place of God who has kept you from having children?
Now picking up at verse 22. Then God remembered Rachel. He listened to her and enabled her to conceive. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said, God has taken away my disgrace.
She named him Joseph and said, May the Lord add to me another son. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we know that You never forget us, but sometimes from our human perspective, it seems like we've been waiting so long for our prayers to be answered. Remember us, God, when we long to hear from You. And please give us peace when we're asked to patiently wait. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening today. I'm Joyce Dinkins, and today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-07-07 20:38:15 / 2023-07-07 20:39:45 / 2
