5I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.6If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.7If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
God is available to us, but if we don't make a conscious effort to stay in sync with His Spirit, to walk with Him daily, and to enjoy fellowship with Him, the cares of life will overwhelm us and the dictates of the daily agenda will produce a sense of self-reliance in us. So, we have to make sure that we are finding ways in which we can stay focused as we make prayer and time with God a priority in our lives. He wants to make Himself known to us and express His life through us - if we yield to His Spirit as He calls to us and invites us to come to Him, we can experience a greater degree of His presence.
The Bible challenges us in 1st Thessalonians 5 to develop a sense of consistent connection with God in prayer:
16Rejoice always,17pray without ceasing,18in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
The website, Ask MetaFilter, at ask.metafilter.com, bills itself as the place, "Where thousands of life's little questions are answered." Less than a month ago, someone named JannaK made this post:
In my grandmother's final days battling brain cancer, she became unable to speak and she filled dozens of index cards with random letters of the alphabet. I'm beginning to think that they are the first letters in the words of song lyrics, and would love to know what song this was. This is a crazy long shot, but I've seen Mefites pull off some pretty impressive code-breaking before!She writes that her grandmother passed away in 1996 of a fast-spreading cancer. She was non-communicative her last two weeks, but in that time, she left at least 20 index cards with scribbled letters on them. She and her cousins were between 8-10 years old at the time, and believed she was leaving them a code. Her father found one of the cards and she decided to tackle the mystery. She points out that,
Based on some of the repeating segments (many lines start with PST, many end with PAGA, and TYAGF repeats often at the end), I'm thinking they may be song lyrics. She inserts lots of backwards commas, and strange breaks at various points that could indicate stanzas. The back of the card has two numbered lines that contain the same letters. The letters (with line breaks to match the card) and images of the cards are below.Janna made the post at 4:13 on the afternoon of January 20. At 4:26, you had someone who said that the string of letters, that began OFWAIHHBTN was indeed, "Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name...". Others began to make their hypothesis about what the letters could stand for. As the tapestry of letters began to be expanded to possible words, we gain some insight into this lady's prayer life.
A WORLD Magazine piece that links to the MetaFilter site identifies the grandmother as Dorothy Holm, and her granddaughter is Janna Holm. “It was kind of relieving to have an answer, even if we don’t know what every single word says...It’s nice to know that they were prayers, and kind of gave some insight into what she was thinking and what she was focused on in her last couple weeks.”
Well, MetaFilter members worked through different letters on the card. They looked for patterns from the King James Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and possible phrases from personal prayer. Some put together algorithms to find patterns and matches. Using her own deductions and comments from the website, Holm compiled a prayer in which her grandmother was giving thanks, and praying that her loved ones would be safe, happy and healthy.
Not only did the forum explode with people trying to help crack the code, but the story began circulating around the internet as well.
Janna Holm said she's not sure why her grandmother used a code, but perhaps, as her memory faded, she used it as a “cheat sheet” to help recall her prayers. She said that the experience has shown her the power of crowd sourcing and given her new insight into her grandmother’s character.
We can surmise through these coded prayer cards show us that even in her dying days, with the inability to speak, Dorothy was carrying on communication with her heavenly Father. She devised a method to keep the connection going. So, we can be reminded that Jesus said to abide in Him and allow His words to abide in us, so that we can pray according to His will. 1st Thessalonians exhorts us to pray without ceasing. So one of our takeaways is to be reminded that God wants us to call on Him and commune with Him on a consistent basis. He loves to hear from and respond to His children, and He is readily available for us to come to Him, not just when we have a pressing need, but for us to pour out our hearts to Him.
We also think about Dorothy's method. She used prayer cards to express herself. I do like the potential of a combination between speaking and writing. There are numerous tools we can use to keep us focused in our prayer lives. For instance, the act of journaling or writing our prayers in some way can not only help keep us on track, but it can also give us a written record of God's hand in our lives.
Finally, Janna gained some new insight into her grandmother's character and saw tangibly that she was a woman of prayer. We can think about how our own prayer life touches others. In our homes, do our families see that we practice prayer? We can be challenged to pray for and with our spouses and children on a regular basis. And, outside our homes, we can gain a reputation to be people of prayer, as we visible seek to bring others before the throne of God in time of need or as we thank Him for how He has moved in our lives.
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