Heaven's Books of Prayers

Libraries are one of life’s fine companions, aren’t they? How many pleasant hours in childhood are spent nestled in these corners exploring the world through the pages of books? How many paths to adulthood and discovery are spent perusing and devouring a gamut of subjects? Books widen our understanding, fears, knowledge. They invoke new questions, confirm or deny old suspicions, give us new frameworks for life. Books that are good, true, noble, lovely, admirable, sobering, enlightening, or excellent enlarge us and grow us as individuals, citizens, and communities. 

Clementinum, Prague

Among all the authors of books, my very favorite and awe-inspiring author is God. Yours too? The sixty-six books contained in the Bible contain history, poetry, prophecy, song, and much more in their telling of God’s works of creation and salvation. These books even refer to each other (search here). To call oneself a Christian pleads the corollary that the Bible is a part of the warp and woof of one's daily life.

The theme of this post bends here toward a pondering of books one cannot check out to read this side of heaven. The Bible gives intriguing hints about these books, ones that are not of this world, but housed in a world beyond the one we see. Books that might be read when we arrive on heaven’s shore: the Book of Life, the books of God’s plans for individuals, the books containing accounts of our tears. Sobering references to books of judgment, which will determine final destinies of all whose names are not recorded in the Book of life.

This all leads me to another library corner, a speculation with weightiness—about heaven's records of our prayers. Will there be such books of record in heaven’s libraries?

Daughter on her birthday

Down the long rows that hold titles beginning with "N," I wonder if there will be a volume or two titled “Nancy’s Prayers.” Will it contain all the formal utterings I made in my lifetime? The childhood prayers of simple or impossible-in-my-view requests? The blessings spoken over meals, or children’s and grandchildren’s bedtime hours? The laughing-out-loud at life prayers? The sensed-based prayers where the joy of the day bubbled up in my heart over the delights of creation and salvation?

Will holy moment prayers abound in this record of my prayer life? The scraps and sighs directed heavenward during weary hours? The rants and rumbles of foolish lips accusing God of not knowing, or caring, or hearing? The questioning, small-faith prayers? The pleading prayers? The sinner’s prayer? The prayer for guidance or understanding? The ensemble, preacher-led prayers that I echoed with my own amens? The glistening eye prayers of bent knees in sanctuaried spaces? The journal prayers written long and intensely during quiet hours?

Will this book of prayers contain the prayerful Psalms I read and sang aloud? Songs and prayers of thanksgiving sung in the company of other saints? Notes of prayer poured through my fingers at piano and organ during practice and in worship services? Other words from the Bible breathed in prayer again and again though out my life’s journey? The Lord’s Prayer spoken countless times in solidarity with other Christians, or ponderingly in quiet moments spent expanding its petitions? The prayers of other Christians I borrowed and made my own? The incomplete prayers of a wandering mind? The mature prayers framed by wrinkled, growing older hands?

Finally, will I be able to read again the prayers at the deathbed of loved ones? The final prayer of my own heart as my spirit let go of my earthly body?

Will each prayer, however spare or misspoken, be followed by the careful, certain answers from the heart of a gracious and loving God? Will I read these answers with gentle nods, get-outta-here delight, growing faith, radiant love? How will the silences be noted, where the Holy Spirit gathered breath and cadenced my own unformed words to His perfect wisdom and will?

Does heaven have place for regrets over blank pages or prayers that could have or should have been prayed? Will there be no blank pages, only thin volumes? Perhaps only earth gives us the opportunity to realize regret and amend our ways before the curtain is drawn, amendments including careless habits of prayer.

In a glimpse of heavenly wonder, we read in St. John’s epistle that the prayers of the saints are not only in the pages of heaven’s records, but they have an honored, Lamb-enabled place in the worship of God in heaven as they are combined with an angel’s golden offering of incense before the throne. (Revelation 8:1-5)

Jesse Tree, Chartes Cathedral

The most surprising book will be the one titled “Jesus Intercedes for Me” wherein is recorded the prayers of the ascended Christ on my behalf before the throne of God. It is beyond my imagining to conceive of the God of all creation praying for me! Yet in the book of Hebrews we read:

Therefore he [the ascended Jesus] is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. 

Heaven’s collection of prayer books—what a glorious collection!

Will we have access to the books of other’s prayers? Will we find our name mentioned among the pages of a parent’s, spouse’s, child’s, grandchild’s, sister’s, brother’s, relative's, friend’s, pastor's, neighbor's, co-worker's, or even an assumed enemy's prayers?

Will we surprisingly find our name in the pages of prayers by someone we never knew? Someone who prayed for us before we were even born?

Jesus told us to pray and never stop. If we follow his admonition, those scribing angels will be kept busy for eons as they ponder our privilege and record page after page of the prayers of the saints.

I hope to keep my angel-scribe dipping that pen into the inkbottle at a good clip until we shake hands and with a ruffle of wings, I’m led to the shelf containing the books of prayers I prayed and books containing prayers prayed on my behalf by Jesus and others. What joyful moments those will be to see these prayers and bask in the wise, sweet answers of God with the clarity of heaven!

Roving among the stacks of heaven’s books of prayers—sounds like a wonderful way to spend little time in eternity to me. Perhaps I’ll go with my friend Lois and we’ll show each other some of the prayers we prayed for each other. Perhaps I’ll find the prayers my son or daughter prayed for me when they were just wee ones learning to talk to God.

We have so much to look forward to in heaven including a Savior-infused library. For the beautiful gift and privilege of prayer this side of our eternal home, won’t you join me in saying, “Thanks be to God!”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

MUSIC LINKS

Christ Be the Lord of All Our Days - St. Paul's Cathedral Choir, text by Timoth-Dudley Smith

Christ be the Lord of all our days,
the swiftly-passing years;
Lord of our unremembered birth,
heirs to the brightness of the earth;
Lord of our griefs and fears.

Christ be the source of all our deeds,
the life our living shares;
the fount which flows from worlds above
to never-failing springs of love;
the ground of all our prayers.

Christ be the goal of all our hopes,
the end to whom we come;
guide of each pilgrim Christian soul
which seeks, as compass seeks the pole,
our many-mansioned home.

Christ be the vision of our lives,
of all we think and are;
to shine upon our spirit's sight
as light of everlasting light:
the bright and morning star.

Morning Prayer - Tchaikovsky, from Children's Album, op. 39, played here by the cello ensemble Cellomanie Croata (a prayer without words)


Evening Prayer - Ola Gjeilo, Phoenix Chorale with saxophonist Ted Belledin

Watch, O Lord,

  with those who wake,

  or watch or weep tonight,

  and give your angels charge over those who sleep.

Tend your sick ones,

O Lord Jesus Christ;

Rest your weary ones;

Bless your dying ones;

Soothe your suffering ones;

Pity your afflicted ones’

Shield your joyous ones;

And all for your love’s sake.

Amen.

                                St. Augustine