Woven Answers

Some of you may remember that rather than reading a daily devotional this year, I'm studying my way through the Gospels. Earlier this week, I finished the book of Mark and began studying Luke. Halfway there! The commentary I chose for Luke was written by Ken Heer, and we found a practically new copy at a used bookstore earlier this year.

In addition to that, I'm studying Erica Wiggenhorn's newly released Bible study called Unexplainable Jesus. I've done Erica's studies on Acts, so I knew I would have much to learn from her through this book, and I've certainly not been disappointed.

I love it when I find a new little nugget I've never before noticed, and I found one that I want to pass on to you!

Erica was talking about the passage in Luke 1, when Zechariah was on duty in the temple and the angel appeared to him. The angel said, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord...he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous - to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." (vv. 13-17)

I've read those words every Christmas season forever, probably. You too?

And then I read Erica's words:

Don't you wonder what Zechariah's prayer had been? As a representative of the people of Israel and a devout and upright man, surely his prayers went beyond his own selfish interests. Was it the coming of the Messiah? The repentance of his people before a holy God? Comfort for his wife in her grief and shame?

I had never given Zechariah's prayers a single thought other than begging for a son. It was their lifelong desire, right? Zechariah and Elizabeth were old and far past the age of being able to have children. Those prayers were surely always about that.

And yet...

...Erica is right. Even if he prayed for a son every single day for his whole life, other things mattered to him too. It was true of me when I was single and prayed for a husband. I begged in prayer for God to answer that desire of my heart, but I prayed over other things too. I prayed for my family, my friends, my church, my job...for needs around me.

And if I did that, why wouldn't Zechariah have done something similar?

Erica said, in His marvelous way, He answered all prayers though the miraculous birth of one life: John.

I. Had. Never. Considered. That. Before.

Presuming, of course, that he did pray for a son, on this day, he found out that prayer was about to be answered. He was going to have a son of his very own.

But in that same answer, he learned that the Messiah really was coming and this son-to-be of his would be the one to prepare the whole nation for Him.

If he had prayed for his nation to turn and repent, with this same answer to prayer, it was about to happen.

All these prayers wrapped up in one answer.

I'd never considered it.

It made me think about my own prayers from the past. How many times did God weave a handful of answers together in one?

It made me think about getting my job at WBCL. I'd been praying for years for God to open the door to a non-math job, and that's all I thought He was doing when He opened that door.

But that job ended up being the place He brought me out of my shell. It was the place He taught me to speak in public and then opened doors for me to do just that. It was the place of my proposal. I had no idea any of that would happen.

I could go down a dozen prayer paths and see how He answered big and small things all in one sweep.

I'm freshly grateful this week. How about you?