"WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE ANYWAY?"

This quote in the context of the court hearing about the Benghazi tragedy: “What difference at this point does it make?” went viral in every form of media and continues to be applied to every imaginable situation. But I want to explore it in a spiritual context, namely intercessory prayer. I adapt it from a topic in my second LAND OF MORE Trilogy book, LIVING THE TREASURES.

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, a holy early Christian who died in 387, wrote, "Be of good cheer, only work, pray, and strive cheerfully for nothing is ever lost. Every prayer of yours, every psalm you sing, is recorded. Every alms, every fast is recorded." 

Could Saint Cyril ever have imagined what technological recording systems would be invented in the twenty-first century to enable man to record in voice and view in full color something that was happening even in a far-off corner of the world—and to disseminate it by satellites through space, and replay it instantly anywhere, and store it permanently? Perhaps God did reveal it to him as an accurate analogy in the spiritual world, and it is for us to marvel that such recording has been taking place in heaven since before creation.

What difference does it make? A tremendous difference! 

 

God not only hears every prayer but keeps a permanent record! Whenever I pray, my prayer doesn’t just vanish into thin air, disappear with time, or ever lose its power. Every prayer is indestructible; it is eternity long, it keeps working forever. I never pray in vain. I launch my prayers out into the universe to the Throne of God, wherever that is. God does not misplace my prayer in some heavenly filing cabinet, overlook it, toss it in the circular file, or set it aside because it is either too trivial or impossible. Received and permanently recorded, my prayer is always answered by God in the fullness of His time and in His perfect way. Even if it takes centuries or eons of time. That would include every prayer in Scripture, the prayers of Jesus, the apostlesancient formulated prayers, every spontaneous request, every sign of the cross meant as prayer, and every other form of prayer including the simplest lifting up of my thoughts toward God.

As I expand my understanding of the Communion of Saints as declared in the ancient apostolic creeds, that would also mean that every prayer prayed by my godly ancestors or Christians throughout history, men and women of faith through the ages, the prayers of those who populate heaven, continue to be efficacious for generations to come—forever—and efficacious for me now in real time!

What difference does it make? A tremendous difference!

In some mysterious manner difficult for my human mind to grasp, even every conversation about the Lord, and by inference every communication, every letter, every e-mail related to our faith, every deed of mercy and love and encouragement, according to Malachi 3:16, is also recorded. I quote from the Amplified paraphrased version: “Then those who feared/revered the Lord talked often one to another, and the Lord listened/gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him of those who reverenced and worshipfully feared the Lord, and who thought on/esteemed His name.” How awesome to realize that God is listening in on my conversation when I talk about Him with friends, and leaning over my shoulder, so to speak, to see what I write about Him! Or even that God is aware of every time I think about Him!

What difference does it make? A tremendous difference!

Truly I would like to have a big, thick Book of Remembrance to present to the Lord as a love gift by the time I leave Planet Earth! God may have assigned a special contingent of angels to serve in some Heavenly Communications Studio to supervise that gigantic recording process that continues through the ages. Heaven must have a huge library with endless storage space for all those Books of Remembrance—unless the angels convert them to celestial micro-chips or there is a designated, endlessly expanding “Storage Cloud.”