When You Cover Your Day in Prayer

For the first 21 years of my life, I had a tendency to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. While attending the Tentmaker’s Youth Ministry Trade School, I was taught a simple saying that has stuck with me the past 4 decades. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” If you don’t cover your day in prayer, you’re either too busy or trusting in your own abilities to ward off the spiritual forces of evil that exist, Ephesians 6:12.

And the servant took ten of his master’s camels and departed, taking some of all his master’s treasures with him; thus he journeyed to Mesopotamia [between the Tigris and the Euphrates], to the city of Nahor [Abraham’s brother]. ¹¹ And he made his camels to kneel down outside the city by a well of water at the time of the evening when women go out to draw water. ¹² And he said, O Lord, God of my master Abraham, I pray You, cause me to meet with good success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. ¹³ See, I stand here by the well of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming to draw water, Genesis 24:10-13.

Today’s featured passages reveals what can happen when you cover your day in prayer. Eliezer doesn’t trust in his own ability to impress Rebekah with his power and wealth. Rather, Eliezer meditates upon his task, finding a wife for Isaac. Sometime during this reflection, God gives Eliezer specific words to pray for and signs to confirm whether or not he is on the verge of selecting the right woman.

And let it so be that the girl to whom I say, I pray you, let down your jar that I may drink, and she replies, Drink, and I will give your camels drink also—let her be the one whom You have selected and appointed and indicated for Your servant Isaac [to be a wife to him]; and by it I shall know that You have shown kindness and faithfulness to my master. ¹⁵ Before he had finished speaking, behold, out came Rebekah, who was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah, who was the wife of Nahor the brother of Abraham, with her water jar on her shoulder. ¹⁶ And the girl was very beautiful and attractive, chaste and modest, and unmarried. And she went down to the well, filled her water jar, and came up, Genesis 24:14-16.

I must confess that praying is not one of my gifts or strong points. However, when I have covered my day in prayer, I have seen immediate answers to prayer as well as miracles like the healing of my sister Kathie from cancer. If I just took prayer more seriously, God would continue to open doors that I thought were previously locked. May the testimony of Eliezer inspire you to each day on earth in prayer.

by Jay Mankus