Prayer Pie
WARNING: NERD ALERT
I have done a fair amount of work in excel in my day. Sometimes it just feels nice to hear the satisfying crunch sound a number can make. I am not alone in this, right?
The family getting our collective “nerd” on, playing the imagination game “No thank you, Evil!” together.
So the other day, when I needed some encouragement, I thought, “I think God has answered a few of our prayers recently, but how much has that actually happened?” It just so happens, I had some workable data on-hand to address that question.
For those who don’t care about the details, here is a quick rundown of what I found:
Figure 1: Prayer Request Pie Chart
Over the past 5 months, God has answered 30 of our prayer requests decisively, affirmatively, displaying his grace and provision. Cool, huh?
My big takeways from this exercise:
God responds to the prayers of His people, and this is how He often works
It is easy to forget all that God has brought us through, and simply focus on the next crisis.
He is willing and capable to carry us through anything, even a global pandemic.
I am encouraged to trust Him more and more readily.
I am also encouraged to pray more boldly, and present more bold requests for my prayer partners to lift up too.
Try this exercise out sometime, and see what you find
Seriously, any story-driven board game with a monster or two in it, and these guys are ready!
For those who would care to see some details…
Appendix A: Where did the pie come from?
Since November of 2019, I have been sharing a list of prayer needs with a small group of prayer partners. These partners have joined with us in prayer for our family, the people we are interacting with during our training and support raising, and the people in Kenya right now.
I gathered up the prayer requests up until the end of March and categorized them into two buckets: Ongoing prayer requests vs requests with tangible endpoint.
16 of the 52 requests are ongoing with no simple way of checking them off a list. Examples of these would be:
for the residency program to come together at Tenwek,
for God to minister to the people who are on their death bed, suffering from COVID-19
that our family would seek God’s will and plan, not our own
36 requests have more tangible “endpoints”. Examples of these are:
for good attitudes, experiences, and friendships for our kids during their training when we visited WGM HQ for two weeks
for patience/peace during some distinct rough stretches of time
for God to open up receptive hearts of people I was presenting with during specific support raising trips
30 out of those 36 prayer requests, we can essentially say “God did it,” and put a checkmark on the list. Many of these requests God graciously went above and beyond what we were even praying for.
Of the other 6 tangible requests, 3 instances are still in the works. God is highlighting places where he is growing us, and where we need to let Him be in control. They could still happen. The other 3 have been answered in ways we didn’t expect, or frankly want. But God has shown us in these places that He has greater wisdom and a greater plan, and he is still in control.
One more pic, because we have to include the little guy too.