The passage today is about how to cope with with discouragement.  That being said, there really isn’t a recommendation as to what to do as much as to ‘trust’ in the Lord.  But how do you do that, practically speaking?

This is a beautiful Psalm, Psalms 26-28 kind of all go together...but this one that is wedged in the middle is about resting in the presence of the Lord.  It describes a peace that I would love to be able to embody in the midst of chaos.

But how do we do that?  This is something I have been wrestling with for quite some time and that I need to finally and fully resolve in my own life...and that is, tracking answered prayers.  When you need God’s help, and you go to Him in prayer, what do you then do with that prayer?  And what happens once many of these prayers get answered?  Where do they go?  For most of us, those prayers are prayed, often forgotten then, but definitely forgotten later.  I am sure I have forgotten more answered prayers than I could even imagine.  But, what it every time I had a current prayer request, I could look at the years of answers that God has already provided...what would happen to my faith?  What if a family had that power?  Or an organization?

I think we should be in the habit of chronicling answered prayers, and we would be best to do it in a way that is visually accessible...that sits in plain site.  At a minimum, we should maintain a prayer log or journal where we can record these things, but I would suggest that what takes it to the next level is some visualization - like an answered prayer jar that sits on the mantle, or something like that.

That’s my take-away for today - I want to build this visualization this week or my family.  I want to lead us in remembering and memorializing all of the answered prayers that we’d been blessed by, and thereby equip our faith to reach deeper levels as we are emboldened by God’s  graciousness to us.