When I called, you answered me;
you made me bold and stouthearted.
Prayers
Do you pray? Do you pray to God? Do you call upon Him?
Remember Jeremiah 29:11-12
“For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.”
We will call upon Him, and come and pray to Him. And He will listen to us. Once we know and understand Jeremiah 29:11, then we call upon God and go to Him and pray to Him. Because we clearly understand that God knows the plans He has for us, and they are plans to prosper us and not to harm us. We know with certainty that God has plans to give us hope and a future. Knowing this in our hearts, we call upon God, and go to Him. We pray to him. And we know that he listens. He told us in Jeremiah 29:12.
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.
Do you call upon Him? Do you go to Him? Do you pray to Him? He is listening when you go to Him and pray to Him.
This week we are going to look at our answers to prayer. But we are going to take a look at these answers in a more clear way. We are going to see more clearly what constitutes an answer. And we are going to do this very actively. Why? Because the time has come to face the truth, God's truth, when it comes to prayer.
This week we are going to pray and actively, aggressively seek the answers provided by God. We are not going to passively wait and see if it happens or when. Oh no. No, no, no, no,no. We have moved along this far, and we are going to move ahead even more. We are going to seek our answers to our prayers. We are going to know that when we called upon our Father God, He was indeed listening. We are going to see his hand in our circumstances. We are no longer going to sit passively and wait. We are going to seek and find.
Jeremiah 29:13
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
When we start to actively pursue the answers to our prayers, we are indeed seeking God with all our heart. So get ready, this is going to be more fun than you can imagine. Just the idea of it is giving Satan concern. Just talking about it makes Satan stand back. Wait till we get started, Satan will start backing up. This is super exciting. It will bring us that much closer to our verse Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart.
Seeing answers to prayer more clearly will increase our faith. It will bring our love to the surface thus help us trust in the Lord that much more. In our last lesson you looked at what God has been doing for you. You were asked to look at the last thing God did for you. You were asked to start looking at God's goodness and his answers to prayers. So God has started us in the right frame of mind. But now it is time to really get to work and see the answers to prayer more clearly.
Two things to remember this week:
1. Proverbs 3:6
in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
In all your ways acknowledge Him. “All” is the key word here. No matter what is in front of you, in all your ways acknowledge Him. No matter how it looks, in all your ways acknowledge Him. No matter what, in all your ways acknowledge Him.
2, The second thing to remember this week is “steady.” Be steady. Steady means firm, stable or constant in behavior. Be steady in this lesson. Be firm. Be constant. Don't give up. Continue. Don't stop. Just do it.
2 Things to keep in mind this week:
1.Proverbs 3:6 In all your ways acknowledge Him.
2.Be steady!
Ready for the exciting part? Ready to start seeing answers to prayer more clearly? Okay, let's go.
Start with Psalm 138:3
When I called, you answered me;
you made me bold and stouthearted.
Look at what David said in this verse regarding answered prayer. David said to God, “When I called you” which means prayed. Calling on God in any form is prayer. It does not matter what you say, how you say it, where you say it, when you call on God that is prayer.
Jeremiah 29:12
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.
Call upon and come mean pray. David says to God, “When I called you” or when I prayed to you, you answered me. So David says that when he called on God, God answered him.
Now let's look at David's answer. What answer did David get from his prayer? Did his problem go away? Did his circumstances suddenly change? Did life become easier? Well let's see.
Psalm 138:3
When I called, you answered me;
you made me bold and stouthearted.
That's it. That's all. Because the next verse in Psalm 138:3 goes on to praising God for his answered prayer. David's next words are:
Psalm 138: 4
May all the kings of the earth praise you, O LORD,
when they hear the words of your mouth.
David didn't say “Oh God when I called, you answered me. You made me bold and stouthearted, and I heard the words of your mouth.” David did not feel bold and stouthearted because he heard words from God. I'm sure we would all love to have the answer to our prayer in the form of God's words. We would surely, most surely, praise the answer of hearing the words from God's mouth or something physically evident.
David's answer from God when he called was -in return- boldness and stoutheartedness. David says my answer to my prayer was “you made me bold and stouthearted.”
Not – You got rid of my problem.
Not – You changed my circumstances.
Not – You rescued me from this trial.
David considered his answer to prayer, not deliverance and rescue first. David sees his answer to prayer in the form o f his own change, his own improvement. David saw that God made him bold and stouthearted, things that affect him directly and not the circumstance. David did not have the easy life. He wrote in the book of Psalm through a lot of despair and times of trouble. But he realized that his answer to prayer was not any immediate resolve to his problems, but it was an attitude change. “You made me bold and stouthearted,” he said.
Bold in the Hebrew translation means “to have confidence.” You made me bold, having confidence in you God. Think of it this way, “you made me bold, fearless due to my confidence in you God.” Because I know you are the Creator of all, when I call you and pray, I am bold and confident. I have the Creator of the Universe and mankind listening to me. That makes me confident and bold. The King of Kings is listening to me. You make me bold. Yes, oh yes. I love it. You make me bold. This may become my new self proclaimed phrase.
David also said that God made him stouthearted. Stouthearted means courageous, strong and firm. Courageous means simply put “not afraid.” David was saying that God made him strong and not afraid.
Psalm 138:3
When I called, you answered me;
you made me bold and stouthearted.
You made me bold and confident in you God, and no longer afraid or not afraid. Remember we are talking about David. Here are a few quotes from David out of the Psalms when he was in need of deliverance:
Psalm 6:2,3
Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am faint;
O LORD, heal me, for my bones are in agony.
My soul is in anguish.
How long, O LORD, how long?
Psalm 6:6
I am worn out from groaning;
all night long I flood my bed with weeping
and drench my couch with tears.
Psalm 31:11, 13
Because of all my enemies,
I am the utter contempt of my neighbors;
I am a dread to my friends—
those who see me on the street flee from me.
For I hear the slander of many;
there is terror on every side;
they conspire against me
and plot to take my life.
David lived with enemies hunting him down. His friends had to flee from him because of the enemies and terror around him. He was at times worn out with his bones in agony and his soul in anguish. However, David prayed and saw his answer. He did not see his answer with an immediate solution to his problems. He did not see his answer with an immediate rescue from his enemies.
David saw his answer clearly.
Psalm 138:3
When I called, you answered me;
you made me bold and stouthearted.
Reading some quotes from David earlier regarding his extreme trials, I think David could definitely have used some boldness and confidence in God, and most surely some courage. He saw his answer to prayer. He saw that answer was in his attitude and mindset first. When you pray knowing that God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, is listening to you, you gain confidence and courage.
Jeremiah 29:12
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.
If you know absolutely that Jeremiah 29:12 is the truth, there is no way that you do not feel more confident and less afraid after praying to God who is listening. The fact that God is listening is enough to make you feel relieved and confident. My goodness, the Father God is listening to you. The all powerful, all knowing, Creator is listening to you. I feel better. I feel confident because God is listening to me. I am not afraid because God is listening to me. I am not afraid just because I know He is listening to me, not to mention the fact that He has plans to prosper me and not to harm me. Remember “prosper” means give you success in all areas of life, not just financially.
Psalm 138:3
When I called, you answered me;
you made me bold and stouthearted.
That is an immediate answer to your prayer. Immediate! You don't have to wait for that. You don't have to wait to change your attitude. You called on God and prayed, and He listened to you. He listened to you. That makes you bold and stouthearted, knowing that God listened to you.
This is your first active pursuit at seeking God's answers to prayers. When you pray this week, use Psalm 138:3. After any prayer state Psalm 138:3 to be true and present. After you pray, say:
God – When I called, you answered me. You made me bold and stouthearted.
You made me confident and not afraid.
You made me strong and courageous because I know you listened to me.
Ladies I must say just stating David's wonderful words “When I called, you answered me” makes me feel strong. No longer do I have to wait for an answer or something to happen because when I called, you answered me.
What are you going to do? Pray. Uh oh, don't tell me you don't pray very much. Oh my, what are we going to do with you? I know, pray more. This is going to give us an added benefit, this lesson will motivate and cause us to pray more this week. Perfect! I love it!
Pray girls pray. Then say with assurance “When I called, you answered me. You made me bold and stouthearted.” We have our first clear view of an answer to prayer, and it is immediate at that! Wow!
One other thing to consider with this lesson, how might you feel if you did not pray? Opposed to praying over a situation or anything, what happens if you don't pray? Consider that as well this week.
I must say when I consider some of my prayers, I did feel more confident and less afraid afterwards. And this is before God even introduced this lesson to us. When I consider how I might have felt without prayer, it is quite interesting to compare. I found myself praying over a missing girl earlier, that I learned of from an email. I prayed for her protection and safe return. I prayed for God to surround her with his love and to give her a desire to seek Him at that time.
Once I began writing this lesson, I considered how I might have felt about this scary situation without prayer or without any trust in God. I can tell you I would have been worried, upset, sad and lacking hope. Because what can I do? I don't know this girl or her family. I can't help them very much. And what can you do? Call the police and search. Beyond that, what is there? We know what is available, and that is prayer. But I can assure you without my Father God to go to and call upon knowing He is listening, I could easily be filled with worry throughout the day. I could be hopeless. However I did pray and did feel hope. I did feel confident and less afraid because I know God listened to my prayer and many others that probably spread from friend to friend. Yes I was still concerned, but at the same time I was confident in my Father God. There is hope. There is something I can do. I can pray and know God is listening.
So this week also consider how you might feel if you did not pray over somethings, then you realize that prayer does make you bold and stouthearted.
Pray. Pray. Pray. Declare that immediate answer you received. Say “God, When I called you answered me, you made me bold and confident, stouthearted and not afraid.” Get excited! We can say we saw an immediate answer to prayer. We are actively looking for these answers. This is just the beginning of our journey to seeking our answers to prayer. So enjoy step one on our way to seeing answers to prayer more clearly.
I love you girls!
Truly
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