Things That Do Not Exist

 

A few years ago, I became a big fan of a series of books written by Stormie Omartian, beginning with The Power of a Praying Wife. She provided a list of 30 things to pray for in my marriage and challenged me to cycle through those topics every single month. I sat back and watched as the power of prayer strengthened our marriage.

Then I read her next book The Power of a Praying Parent and wished I would have had it while my little ones were growing up. She solved that by publishing The Power of Praying for Your Adult Children. Even if I had missed praying for my children as faithfully as I wished, I had the second chance of praying for them all the way through adulthood. I suggested to a class of older adults at church that they pray for their grandchildren this way, using the Praying Parent version until Stormie published the Grandparent version.

Each day as I prayed for my husband and adult children from a little cheat sheet I had made from her books, I skipped over the ‘praying grandparent’ column. Because I didn’t have grandchildren. Then on a sunny April morning in 2015 as I took my daily walk, the thought occurred to me that I could start praying that column too, because nothing expresses more faith than praying like something that isn’t actually is. Abraham had that kind of faith.

(as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed – God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; [Romans 4:17, NKJV]

What if I prayed for my grandchildren as though they already existed? What if I prayed for what was not, as though it were? Then if grandchildren did arrive someday, there would already be a balance of prayer deposits on their behalf. On that very day, what I did not know was that my first grandchild was in the making. He had 118 days left in the womb of his birth mother who did not yet know she would make the courageous decision to place him into the arms of his parents on the day he was born!

I continue to pray this list daily over each of the grandchildren I now have. I am still amazed at the surprise God had up his sleeve that day when He prompted me to pray for what wasn’t as though it were! It wasn’t the first time I’ve prayed as though a non-existent thing existed. It won’t be the last. But it will always be my favorite!

If you have a secret desire of your heart that seems like a distant possibility, pray as though it’s already done. Resist the fear that you will be even more disappointed if you pray that way and it doesn’t happen. Rather relax in the knowledge that just because you can’t see it, doesn’t make it not so. He might already have it on His divine project plan. A milestone waiting to happen. A miracle in the making. Treat it as though it is. God is a spectacular maker of things that are not yet things.