The Prayer Log

My Dad had a prayer log.

No, I don’t mean the notebook in which he kept track of prayers and answers – although he had one of those, too. I mean the kind of log that is the trunk of a big fallen tree. My dad threw a log chain around that old log and with his tractor, dragged it to the top of a little hill about a hundred yards from the ranch house. While sitting on his prayer log, he commanded a 360 degree view.

And from that prayer log he talked out loud to his Heavenly Father. He could gaze toward the little town of Parshall where he taught the Word on a regular basis. He could look up and down the valley toward his neighbors and friends and lift them to the Lord. He could turn and pray for his children and grandchildren, scattered to the various points of the compass. Looking back down to the house he could pray for my mom.

I am thankful that my Dad had a prayer log.  Have you ever pondered the perspective of our Heavenly Father?  The psalmist meditates on this:

The LORD looks down from heaven;
he sees all the children of man;
from where he sits enthroned he looks out
on all the inhabitants of the earth,
he who fashions the hearts of them all
and observes all their deeds…
Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him… (Ps 33:13-15, 18)

And of course, the psalmist reminds us how “intimately acquainted” God is with us, even to the point of knowing our “unformed substance” as he put us together in the womb. (Psalm 139)

Our Heavenly Father does not need Google Earth!

Let’s not forget who prays for us. The Holy Spirit “intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (Rom 8:26-27). And as we consider the ongoing priestly role of our Savior for those who draw near to God through him, we know that “he always lives to make intercession for them”. (Heb 7:25). In one sense, the entire Bible is about the work of an interceding God!

My parents sold the ranch in 2005. On the morning that we moved them to their new home, I sat on the prayer log for the last time and talked out loud to my Heavenly Father: This is no longer my father’s land. But this -- and my eyes swept around the 180 degree horizon—but THIS is My Father’s world!

I’m glad my dad had a prayer log. But my Heavenly Father’s view is even better!

Reed Taussig July 17, 2015