I Touch The Future. I Pray!

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Do you ever pray for people you have not met yet?  I was very surprised some years ago when a friend told me he was praying for the person his infant daughter might marry one day.

I asked if he already knew that person.  “I thought arranged marriages went out long ago,” I added.  “Besides, she might not want to get married.”

He smiled with a knowing look and said, “That’s true.  But really I pray about all the people she will have relationships with … friends, bosses, coworkers, even relatives that have not been born yet.

“But if there is a husband in her future, that person may be alive right now.  He is having experiences that will contribute to the man he will become.  It is right for me to pray for him.”

It was a new concept for me, but one I quickly endorsed.  Today when I look at my son in law, I realize how long I have known him spiritually and how God kept him in His Care until many years after my first prayer when he and our daughter met.

When we had our house built, we were one of the first in what was then a new subdivision.  I sat on the top floor before there was a roof.  I had a bird’s eye view of our street and of our just beginning to develop neighborhood.  I prayed for all who would come here, either to live or visit in whatever time.

When people come to visit our home for the first time, they often comment that they have the strange feeling they have been here before.  Some comment it feels like “coming home.”

I tell them how long they have been prayed for from this very homing point.  I tell them, “Welcome home.”

I pray for those who will live in this sacred space after my husband and I have gone.  While we hope to live here a long time yet, I know the day will come when others will live here.

When we changed from carpet to solid flooring years ago, I wrote scripture verses all over the sub-flooring before the boards were laid.  When I walk across the floor, I am aware I am literally standing on The Word of God.  I pray for those in the future for whom God is preparing this place.

Prayer has also prepared the way for me many times.  At times I had to have surgeries, where I had to trust my life to people I didn’t know.  I knew, as I drifted into anesthesia, I would be cared for by nameless, unknown people behind masks.  

But they were not unknown to God.  He intimately knew them.  He knew everything about them and had guided every moment that had brought us together at that time.

In the days before surgeries, I prayed, not only for my unknown helpers, but I prayed also for their friends, their families, their co-workers.  As my friend taught me long ago, whatever is happening around them is influencing the people they will be when they connect with me.

And hopefully my prayers for them will influence who I am when I come into their presence.  I will not be afraid because I have already established a connection by acknowledging in my spirit that we are related.  We have the same Father Creator.

Did you know Jesus prayed specifically for you?  Jesus knew the past, present and future you.  He wanted to be sure His Followers understood His Circle of His Love would extend far beyond them.  Jesus wanted His Followers to continue His Prayer and pray for you off in the future.   

Jesus prayed for His Followers of that time and for us, His future Followers.  When Jesus talked to God in The Garden of Gethsemane, He said, 

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

John 17:20-21

When you recognized God in your life, Jesus smiled, and said to The Father, “I prayed for her.  I prayed for him.  I knew they would come.”

And Peter, James, John and the others said, “Yes, amen.  We prayed for them too.”

Take a few moments and think of the great saints of the past who prayed for you, even when they did not know your name or anything about you.  

And then consider who you will pray for now and in a future unknown to you now.  That future is completely known to God, Who created you and will continue to create in the future.

I touch the future.  I pray!