Encouragement in Prayer
Winter 2024
Christian women desiring to live for God’s glory will know wonderful blessings as well as various discouragements. Life on earth isn’t easy, but God has given us His Word full of precious promises, assurances of His own good pleasure towards us, and means of grace to exercise faith in Him.
Prayer is one of those precious gifts whereby we ask for desires “agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ” (Shorter Catechism #98). We come humbly to God confessing that we know not what we should pray for and asking the Lord to teach us to pray. As we look at our lives, we can see how God is bringing us to love and value prayer. Our gracious God leads us, His daughters, to more highly esteem the place of prayer as both a good gift as well as a lifeline for our survival.
During my childhood and youth, my parents included prayer in everyday life. They trusted the Lord for safety in driving by consistently praying before leaving the driveway. Although they drove thousands of miles, they never had an accident, which is a testament to the faithfulness of God. During our family devotions after dinner, we read the Bible together, Dad prayed, and we sang. My dad’s faithful, heartfelt prayers showed his trust in God. At night, my parents prayed together before dropping off to sleep. When I was up late completing college assignments, I could hear their voices praising God and praying for the family. In Mom’s later years, when she couldn’t attend Faith Free Presbyterian Church, she faithfully prayed for the church children. This heritage of prayer has become precious to me.
During my New Jersey teen years, our family attended a rather dispensational church, but the teenagers there loved to meet in the church kitchen to pray. We called it KP, “kitchen prayer” meetings, and I learned that prayer could bring unity among Christian peers as we praised the Lord and prayed together for His work.
After Myron and I married, we traveled to Belfast, Northern Ireland for Myron to study in the Theological Hall for that school year. Sitting in Free Presbyterian church services and prayer meetings was like no other church experience I had ever had. Hearing ministers, elders, businessmen, farmers, and women all pray with power and trust in God was an amazing blessing to my soul. Their prayers honored and extolled the God of Heaven and their earnest pleas for matters large and small were expressed as though they expected God to answer as He has promised in His Word. The throne of grace was a beloved place where God’s people loved to gather. I am extremely grateful for the heritage of prayer the FPCNA has from the Ulster Free Presbyterian churches.
The Lord continued to teach me to use the means of grace to solve the problems in my life. At a time of rejection when my heart ached, the Lord used the preaching of the Word and the prayer meetings to heal my hurting heart. Many preaching and prayer services left me weeping out my grief because I had been pointed to Christ who was acquainted with grief and took mine.
I also found victory over Satan’s attacks to keep us from the mid-week prayer meeting. He does not like God’s people to pray! Beginning the get-ready-for-church routine with little children around 5:00 p.m., I was dismayed at various frustrating time-consuming happenings which hindered us every Wednesday. As the Wednesday attack pattern repeated, I moved the get-ready-for-church routine to 4:00 p.m. to allow enough time to get our young family to the prayer meeting. Praise God for victory!
When parenting brought challenges, the Lord taught me to depend on Him! The Bible is full of promises, but we must ask. I asked for His strength, patience, wisdom, and help! How gracious is our great God who is more ready to give than we are to ask! I simply took God at His Word and asked. He was right there, gifting me needed wisdom in the moment, His strength for my weakness, patience to stay cool, and His ready help.
Myron planned to establish a Free Presbyterian church with Sunday meetings first, but our souls desperately needed earnest prayer meetings, which we didn’t find locally as we settled. In the Lord’s mercy, He provided a meeting place where we went each Wednesday evening. Although often just our own family attended in those days, Myron preached, and we sang and prayed. Putting our circumstances, needs, and the church ministry into God’s hands exercises our faith by lifting the burdens and encouraging our hearts to trust the mighty power of God. Trinity FPC was birthed in prayer.
Sharing my prayer journey overwhelms me with gratitude to God. Dear Sister-in-Christ, what is your prayer journey like? We exercise ourselves in faith before God both in private prayer and in church prayer meetings. May we highly treasure God’s precious gift of prayer and deeply appreciate the lifeline to God for help in time of need. These verses from “The Mercy Seat” by Hugh Stowell express prayer so well:
From ev'ry stormy wind that blows,
From ev'ry swelling tide of woes,
There is a calm, a sure retreat:
'Tis found beneath the mercy seat.
Ah, whither could we flee for aid,
When tempted, desolate, dismayed:
Or how the hosts of hell defeat,
Had suffering saints no mercy seat?
Mrs. Barbara Mooney