A BUCKET OF PRAYERS

 There is a story that John wrote about while he was exiled on a little island many years ago.  It’s contained in the book we now call Revelations.  Now I’m no authority on Revelations.  I’m not sure I’m an authority on much of anything.  But when I read this account, it just jumped up and blessed my heart so much, I thought I needed to write about it.

In John’s account of this happening, in the 5^th chapter of Revelations, there is a special book that is sealed with seven seals.  Apparently it is a very important book.  No one is found in heaven or earth who is worthy to open this book.  John is troubled about this situation and weeps because there is no one to open the book. 

But then The Lamb stood up, obviously worthy, and took the book.  In verse 8 John tell us that when The Lamb takes the book some very touching stuff happens.  Twenty-four “elders” and four “beast”.  (You can study this and figure out your own call on who these guys are)  fell down before The Lamb and opened up containers full of “odors” or sweet smells.  John tells us that these sweet smells are the prayers of the saints.   

Now I am a father.  The older I get the more I realize that some of the things I do, the way I act, the little idiosyncrasies that I possess, have come down somehow from my earthly father.  For instance, I remember that my Dad kept the cards, notes and letters that his children sent to him.  I still have his Bible and inside the pages of that Bible are notes that I sent him many years ago. 

He kept those notes and cards because they meant something to him, not because they were well written, not because I used prefect English and wrote in beautiful script, but because he loved the one who sent them. I do the same with my kids and grand kids.  I have several drawers of cards and notes that have been given to me and my Bible is crammed with notes and cards from the one’s I love.  

As I read John’s story I was blown away that God our Heavenly Father does the same thing.  When His children pray, when they call out to Him, when their hearts are breaking under the struggles of this old world, or when they call out to Him in joy and praise…..it means something special to God.  So God takes a container, oh the Word calls it a vial, I’ll call it a bucket, and He places our prayers into that bucket to keep.  He puts them in a special place so He can remember them from time to time.  It may be on a shelf or in a special room or out in His heavenly barn, but He keeps them.

 I wonder if He does what I do.  I wonder on days when it’s raining in heaven and God can’t get out and work in the field, or when He has nothing better to do if He just happens upon that bucket and opens it up and listen to some of those prayers?

But John tells us that on that special day, that all those buckets will be “tumped” over and those prayers will be poured out.  The smell of them, the sweet, passionate, fervent smell of them will fill all of heaven.   

It just almost more than I can imagine to think that the almighty God values my prayers.  The stumbling, bumbling, stuttering attempts I make at communicating with Him are something that blesses His old heart.  I doubt very seriously that I ever get my prayers right.  I doubt that anyone will ever write down one of my prayers and repeat it before thousands of people…..but one day, don’t miss this, one day 24 guys will pour out a bucket full of my prayers on the streets of gold and they will slosh around at the foot of the throne of God and they will make “Daddy God” smile.

That makes me want to pray a little more often.  It makes me want to spend a little more time with Him.  Makes me want to skip the “now I lay me down to sleep” or “God is great, God is good” prayers and do some serious communicating with my Father. 
 

I hope you will find a place today to send up a few words to God that will make Him smile.  And I hope that I will be around one day when they open up those “buckets of prayers”.  May something you and I say to God be something that will make Heaven smell just a little better.  May my prayers and your prayers mix together and be “heavenly air fresheners” that Johnson and Johnson and Fabreze could never come close to matching.