March 13

Let these my words, wherewith I have made supplication, ...be nigh unto the Lord our God day and night. — 1 Kgs 8:59

Solomon asked that God might not forget his prayers.

The intercessions of Jesus for His people are being answered in every new blessing that comes to us. When a mother pleads for her child she would have her petition kept nigh to God day and night. She would have God keep His eye ever on her boy, wherever he might be, and in whatever danger.

It is a precious thought, too, that we do not need to be always reminding God of our desires for our friends, but that our prayers stay before Him, are not filed away and forgotten, as are many requests we make in places of power, but are always remembered.

Even if sometimes we forget to pray, God does not forget, for He knows our heart’s wishes, and will do more for us than we ask or think. We are told that God keeps our tears in His bottle – that is, He remembers our sorrows, and they are sacred to Him. Our prayers, too, we are assured, are laid up – “vials full of odors, which are the prayers of saints.”