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Q. How has God responded to your prayers?

A. "Call unto me, and I will answer. …" The verse [Jeremiah 33:3 in the King James version] still resonated in me after college when I packed my little Datsun for Chicago. By the time ten years had passed, I was thinking, If while I was growing up I had developed an ultimate fantasy plan for my life—trips to the moon, anything at all—I could not have conjured up as meaningful a life as God is giving me. Had not my prayers been answered far, far beyond my expectations? Not that I had become rich or famous. But I was doing work I relished, with people I respected, and I had married the woman I loved.

"Great and mighty things?" Yes they were. Over the past 25 years it would seem that God has kept His bargain.

You mean you've seen all your prayers answered?

Over the past 25 years, all my "calls" have been answered in "great and mighty" ways—but strictly on God's terms. Sometimes illogically; sometimes distressingly. This call to adventure has been a strange mixture of tedium, trauma, accomplishment, anger, frustration, amazement, ecstasy, and bewilderment. Ironically, He doesn't seem as concerned as I about getting out His own gospel; he's allowed some of his best servants to be stricken with cancer, others to be torn by circumstances or to self-destruct bizarrely. Fervent prayer sometimes seems to change nothing at all. God isn't, as C. S. Lewis indicates, a tame lion, nor does he answer prayers like a full-service agency. But He has kept his bargain.

Harold Myra is the executive chairman of Christianity Today International.

Adapted from Living by God's Surprises (Word, 1988) by permission.

Prayer for the Week

Mighty God, in need, teach me to turn to You first —and trust You for Your response.

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