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Finally! I’ve come up to date in technology! My most recent purchase was an iPhone 4. Lot’s of fun, yet a time stealer too! I like it because you can shop. Not for clothes or shoes, but apps! Apps are little software for your phone.

I stumbled across an app for Charles Spurgeon. He was a prolific preacher and author in London in the 19th century. His commentaries and quotes are used greatly, even to this day. I love his writings. He can take few words, create a piercing thought, all the while stirring your faith. This particular app provides a morning and evening devotion.I want to share it with you here, as well as my friend April’s recent comment.

Recently in our H.O.P.E. Christian infertility support group, ([email protected]) a new mom, April stood up and testified to the subject Spurgeon writes so eloquently about below, “For this child I prayed.” She mentioned a close family member had a child about the same time she did. However, this family member became pregnant easily, without struggle, unlike herself.

She went on to say, “As I watch them, it seems very different. Heath and I have an indescribable love for our son, Preston. Not to sound proud or anything, I see the abiding love of my family member towards their baby, but the depth of love we have for our child seems deeper. My husband and I will look at one another and say, ‘Can you believe God answered our prayer? We will just stare at our little one, without saying a word and watch him breathe, and then we look at one another and say, “Can you believe we have a baby?”

You can fill in the blank, “for this ____?____ I prayed”, you don’t have to be praying for a child like some of us are, it can be anything. But once you pray in earnest and the answer comes you’ll look upon it as doubly precious, with an overwhelming sense of God’s love. Just like Hannah looked upon her son, Samuel and as my friend April looks upon her son, Preston.

Evening “For this Child I Prayed”
by Charles Spurgeon

For this child I prayed. 1 Samuel 1:27

“Devout souls delight to look upon those mercies which they have obtained in answer to supplication, for they can see God’s especial love in them. When we can name our blessings Samuel, that is, asked of God, they will be as dear to us as her child was to Hannah. Peninnah had many children, but they came as common blessings unsought in prayer: Hannah’s one heaven-given child was dearer far, because he was the fruit of earnest pleadings.

How sweet was that water to Samson which he found at the well of him that prayed! Quassia cups turn all waters bitter, but the cup of prayer puts a sweetness into the draughts it brings. Did we pray for the conversion of our children? How doubly sweet, when they are saved, to see in them our own petitions fulfilled! Better to rejoice over them as the fruit of our pleadings than as the fruit of our bodies. Have we sought of the Lord some choice spiritual gift? When it comes to us it will be wrapped up in the gold cloth of God’s faithfulness and truth, and so be doubly precious. Have we petitioned for success in the Lord’s work? How joyful is the prosperity which comes flying upon the wings of prayer! It is always best to get blessings into our house in the legitimate way, by the door of prayer; then they are blessings indeed, and not temptations.

Even when prayer speeds not, the blessings grow all the richer for the delay; the child Jesus was all the more lovely in the eyes of Mary when she found him after having sought him sorrowing. That which we win by prayer we should dedicate to God, as Hannah dedicated Samuel.

The gift came from heaven, let it go to heaven. Prayer brought it, gratitude sang over it, let devotion consecrate it. Here will be a special occasion for saying, Of thine own have I given unto thee. Reader, is prayer your element or your weariness? Which?”

Just as Charles Spurgeon states and my friend April has testified. Let me ask you…

“Is prayer your element or your weariness?”

My friend, never cease praying. God is the answer and God has the answer!

Morning and Evening Devotional, by Charles Spurgeon. 43rdElement.com