“Has anyone ever told you you were an answer to prayer?” He laughed and said, “Well, that’s a first!”

My wife and I had been praying a specific prayer for months and the deadline was now days away. Then, within ten minutes, in a way I didn’t expect, God answered our prayer through this man.

This man isn’t a Christian. And yet he was an answer to our prayers. God, knowing our circumstance, worked through this man’s kindness, generosity, and joy. God will bless him because of it.

Do we believe God is our good and Heavenly Father? Do we believe He wants us to excel in everything as His sons and daughters? Do we believe that if we delight to give good gifts to our children, our Heavenly Father does more?

Or do we believe God is somehow limited? That He answers only through certain people, in certain ways, and at certain times? But the whole earth is His! So is time. And every breath.

Paul believed that whatever happened to him “was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God” (2 Corinthians 1). How does that make you feel? Anxious, terrified? Or hopeful, joyful? It is a most joyous and freeing thing to rely on a God who says He is our good and heavenly Father.

“Your kingdom come…give us our daily bread.” The range of these requests is breathtaking! From the cosmic dominion of God’s rule and power all the way down to what you and I eat for lunch today. From what we need to what we dream, God is our daily portion, our cup of salvation, because He wants to be.

Dear Elim Grace, if we do not ask, God will not give. If He does not give, we will not receive. If we do not receive, He will not get the thanks. Our God has everything; He can do anything. He is our good and heavenly Father. So let’s ask, seek, knock. He answers our prayers.