Though God is calling Christians everywhere to pray, this little article is specifically to call Christian mothers to daily, earnest, believing prayer.

God said repeatedly, “Ask and you shall receive,” and He modeled the asking after a child’s asking his father for what he needs and wants. This is an object lesson that all mothers should surely be able to understand. How our hearts yearn after our children. How we desire to give them what they need and want. We understand a mother’s heart, and most of us watch a father’s heart as our dear husbands work with our children. Why then do we find it difficult to pray? Why do we worry and fret? Why are we anxious? Why do we take so long to understand our place of prayer?

There are so many verses throughout the Bible that teach on prayer, but so few earnestly praying mothers. The Bible is full of examples of men who met with God and took their needs to Him. Do not wait to pray earnestly until you are in a great difficulty. Learn to pray now. Notice that God delights in our prayers. He wants us to pray. He desires a relationship with us and prayer is a key in developing that relationship. Psalm 15:8 “But the prayer of the upright is his delight.” Matthew 21:22 “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” Philippians 4:6 “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” Colossians 4:2 “Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving.”

Jesus is our perfect example of prayer. He prayed much, going alone to meet His Father. It was there that He received strength and wisdom to face each new day, each trial. Mark 1:35 “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.” What a way to begin a day full of service and compassion for God’s people! God is calling mothers to this kind of prayer so that we, too, can be of service to Him.

How will we answer? So often we limit God by our timid asking.

 

• We doubt the Word that tells us “Ask, and ye shall have your prayers.”

• We turn our thoughts as to a task with will constrained and rare.

• And yet to us these scanty prayers yield gold without alloy.

• Oh God, but he that trusts and dares must have a boundless joy! —submitted

If we believe our God, we will pray! If we believe Him, we will keep on praying! God does not always answer when and how we think He will. But He does answer! And when the answer comes, how it inspires our hearts and increases our faith in Him. We all have heard about the prayer life of George Mueller. Let me relate an inspiring incident that came to my attention one day last year when my faith and praying was really being stretched. The author says:

I went to America some years ago with the captain of a steamer, who was a very devoted Christian. When off the coast of Newfoundland he said to me, "The last time I crossed here, five weeks ago, something happened which revolutionized the whole of my Christian life. We had George Mueller of Bristol on board. I had been on the bridge twenty-four hours and never left it. George Mueller came to me, and said, 'Captain, I have come to tell you that I must be in Quebec, Saturday afternoon.' 'It is impossible,' I said. 'Very well, if your ship cannot take me, God will find some other way. I have never broken an engagement for fifty-seven years. Let us go down into the chart-room and pray,' said he. I looked at that man of God, and thought to myself, 'What lunatic asylum can that man have come from? I never heard of such a thing as this.' 'Mr. Mueller,' I said, 'do you know how dense this fog is?' 'No,' he replied, 'my eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God, who controls every circumstance of my life.'

"He knelt down and prayed one of the most simple prayers, and when he had finished I was going to pray; but he put his hand on my shoulder, and told me not to pray. 'First, you do not believe He will answer; and second I BELIEVE HE HAS, and there is no need whatever for you to pray about it.'

"I looked at him, and he said, 'Captain, I have known my Lord for fifty-seven years, and there has never been a single day that I have failed to get audience with the King. Get up, Captain and open the door, and you will find the fog gone.' I got up, and the fog was indeed gone. On Saturday afternoon, George Mueller was in Quebec for his engagement." —selected

The songwriter so aptly says, “If our love were but more simple, we should take Him at His Word.” Let us say with Paul, “I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.” Acts 27:25.

So many of us, like the ship captain, do not really believe. If we did, we would not sit and fret about our families, and our churches. If we did believe Him, we would fall on our faces and PRAY! If we could see the answers that He will give to our prayers, we would band together with other believers and pray. We would not complain about our lot, or chat about trivial things, or find fault with other believers, but we would kneel together and PRAY!

The following verses are from the Old Testament but they aptly describe the calling of women to take up prayer in our day. Jeremiah 9:17-21 “Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning women, that they may come: And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters. For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled! we are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out. Yet hear the word of the LORD, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbor lamentation. For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets.” These women and their daughters were called to weep for the salvation of their people. We are called to pray earnestly in faith believing for the salvation of souls and the resolution of the difficulties we are facing. We are so much more privileged than those women in the Old Testament. We can come into the presence of the mighty Father. We can have a relationship with the God of Heaven. He lives in us and works through us. What a mighty God we serve!

Taken from "The Heartbeat of the Remnant"