Praying & Believing God

But the angel said to him: "Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John.- Luke 1:13

I want to pause here and talk this through here for a second. Don't be afraid. Of course, there is first of all the fear of what he had seen. Do you know that Daniel also saw Gabriel and it terrified him so much he was nearly physically ill. So this is the same angel we have standing before Zechariah. So he is seeing the same kind of sight and Gabriel says, "Don't be afraid." I know that's what it means:  Don't be afraid of the sight but I thought also about a deeper kind of very personal fear, that fear that our prayers are not being heard. That fear that it is working for somebody else but it is just not working for us; that kind of fear. I want you to see with me... what blows my mind here is he said, "Your prayer has been heard. Elizabeth will bear a son." Do you honestly think he prayed that that day? I don't. Why on earth would he? Don't you think at that point they would have been scared to death to have a baby. I mean like that time had come and it had gone. I don't want to get graphic here but it is telling us that she was well along in the years so that we would understand that the reproduction process could not take place. So I just ask you, do you honestly think that old man went into that altar that day and prayed for his wife to bear a son?  I do not think so. I think what happened here is one of the scariest but also most encouraging things on earth!  And that is that some of our prayers are still like out there blinking before God. They're still out there and here's what God began to show me--We never bring a new request to the altar…That he does not remember the old one!!!! Oh, is that good? Does it get better than that?  You don't even have to mention the old one. Every time you bring the new one, he still remembers the old one. There is this beautiful picture in Revelation chapter five where it says that they are holding up bowls of incense that are the prayers of the saints. You've got to know with me today, they're still out there.

He hasn’t forgotten!! I suggest you go back to the Lord today because you might be thinking, get that one out of the bowl! Some of you are going to end up married to who you asked to be married to when you were eight. You don't want him! You don't want him! Go back and get that one back out of the bowl! But, He remembers and they come up before him as live coals on that altar. Every prayer we've ever prayed, every time we pray something new--He remembers something old. Believe that God has heard you.

Resource: Life Today with Beth Moore http://lifetoday.org/video/praying-and-believing-god