“So in the course of time Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, ‘Because I asked the Lord for him.’” – 1 Samuel 1:20
Dallas Willard writes: “Agnes Sanford relates how, as the young wife of an Episcopal minister, her child came down with a serious ear infection. It lasted for six weeks while she prayed fearfully and fruitlessly.
Then a neighboring minister called to see her husband and learned that the child was sick. Quite casually, though intently and in a businesslike manner, he prayed for the little boy, who immediately shut his eyes, lost his fever flush and went to sleep.
When the boy awoke, his fever was gone and his ears were well. Sanford remarks,
The strange thing is that this did not immediately show me a new world. Instead, it perplexed me greatly. Why did God answer the minister’s prayers when He had not answered mine? I did not know that I myself blocked my own prayers, because of my lack of faith.
Nor did I know that this [successful] prayer could not come from resentment and darkness and unhappiness, as a pipeline can be clogged with roots and dirt. This doubt and confusion remained in my mind, even though the child himself, whenever he subsequently had a bit of an earache, demanded that I pray for him.”
Our Heavenly Father desires to hear the prayers of our hearts and to answer them. Today in prayer, praise the Lord that our God loves us and answers prayer.
“When I stop praying, the coincidences stop happening.” – William Temple
God’s Word: “Look on me and answer, O Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death; my enemy will say, ‘I have overcome him,’ and my foes will rejoice when I fall. But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.” – Psalm 13:3-5
By Peter Kennedy, Copyright 2026, Devotional E-Mail
DEVOTIONS IN THE BOOKS OF SAMUEL, CHRONICLES AND KINGS †