I recently finished reading Rosalind Goforth’s book, How I Know God Answers Prayer.

This book is a personal testimony written by Rosalind Goforth of how the Lord answered her prayers during her family’s time of mission work in China. She details specific accounts of their escape during the Boxer rebellion as well as daily answers to prayer for needs like health, clothes, and money.

The book reads almost like a personal diary – while reading it, I felt like I was sitting down with Mrs. Goforth and hearing her testify of the grace of God in her family’s life. She shares her struggles and victories.

I came away with two main things after reading this book:

1. A personal blessing to me.

How enriching would it be to sit down with a veteran missionary wife and listen to her tell stories of the Lord’s answers to prayer in her life! That’s what this was like for me. Definitely a faith-booster as I read and considered the power the Lord has and the way He graciously shows that power and love to His children.

2. An increased desire to pray.

How could I not come away with this after reading a whole book on God’s specific answers to the Goforth’s specific requests?

One more thing I came away with from this book is a desire to keep my own account of the Lord’s answers to my prayers. There have been several times recently when I’ve been praying specifically for something and the Lord answered it. I’ll tell you my favorite story:

My hubby and I had a second car we were thinking of selling. It was an older car and worked well, but we didn’t use it too much and decided to sell it and use the money towards a bigger car purchase in the future. I took pictures and listed the car on craigslist but heard nothing.

crickets.

(Well, actually, to be fair, I did hear from 2 scam people trying to get me to contact them about some random at-home business. Ummmm…lemme think about that…no.) 😉

Anyway, after a week or two of nothing from that first craigslist attempt, I decided to start praying about it and asking the Lord for 2 specific things:

1. that the car would sell before the end of the year.
2. we would get $1,000 for it.

I re-listed the car and got an email from a lady interested in the car. She ended up coming to look at it the next day and bought the car 3 days after contacting me about it.

Oh, and did I mention how much she paid? $1,000.

So, the Lord answered that specific prayer and did it waaaay before 2012 began.

Funny because I didn’t tell my hubby about praying for these things until after we were in the middle of selling the car. He jokingly said, “Well if I had known you were praying about it, I would have told you to ask for more than $1,000.”

😉 I love him.

There have definitely been times in  my life when I have prayed about things and the Lord has not answered in the way I requested. Those are the times when I have to rest in the fact that God is good, does good, and knows best:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:8-9

If you’re looking for a blessing or a faith-boosting book, I recommend this to you.

Maybe it would be a good one for you to read during the new year. What better way to begin the new year than with a book about the Lord’s power to answer prayer?