Longwave Prayers That Impact The Nations

The last eighteen months have been a desert experience for me on a personal level and for our ministry. It has been frustrating, and at times distressing to watch door after door close and resource after resource dry up, and basic privileges taken away such as being able to turn the lights on.

The experience has been like falling from a plane without a parachute. Indeed, I had a vivid dream of such an experience. I found myself falling from a passenger jet at 30,000 feet. I could see the plane above me disappear into the distance. I did have a parachute; however, it was in my hands and not strapped to my back. I wrestled with the parachute to the point that I was able to safely pull the cord and open it up. I landed on the narrow roof of a very tall building.

This building was up in the clouds and the roof was very narrow. There was some kind of mast or lightning rod in the centre of the roof, and I clung to it, for just a few feet in any direction took you to the edge, and I’m not one for heights. Then out of nowhere a helicopter arrived, and as it hovered just above the roof, I was able to free myself from the parachute and a co-pilot in the helicopter helped me to climb on board. We pulled away from the roof, and no sooner had we done this, the person on board pulled me out of my seat and pushed me out of the door to my death!

This was just a sign of the warfare and opposition we were to experience this year.

But the Lord had warned me through a passage of scripture He gave me for 2022:

Though the fig tree does not blossom and there is no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive fails and the fields produce no food, Though the flock is cut off from the fold and there are no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will [choose to] rejoice in the Lord; I will [choose to] shout in exultation in the [victorious] God of my salvation! The Lord God is my strength [my source of courage, my invincible army]; He has made my feet [steady and sure] like hinds’ feet And makes me walk [forward with spiritual confidence] on my high places [of challenge and responsibility].

Habakkuk 3v17-19

I had focused on the latter; more positive part of this passage and it wasn’t until later in the year I realised He was saying that no matter what you do or try, it isn’t going to work, but don’t stop doing or trying!

Unanswered prayers have become a bit of a theme during this time. They remind me of the comments the two sisters made to Jesus when He arrived after the funeral of Lazarus. ‘Lord if You had been here…’ Our prayers were similar. ‘Lord if You show up, I can buy food and eat.’ ‘Lord, if You show up, I can buy electricity and put the power back on.’ ‘Lord, if You show up, I can go to church today.’ Church for me is not walking distance, it is two hours in both directions and a £25 investment every time, and faithfully, I have prepared early every Sunday; dressed, with bag packed, tithe in the envelope, written out and prayed over, and yet nearly every Sunday the 9am deadline for leaving has passed in silence. This has been deeply disappointing.

Disappointment upon disappointment upon discouragement, and this upon despair when the prayers have been, ‘Lord, we need you to show up because the kids don’t have food.’

We have prayed, petitioned, interceded, and fasted, and all has been met with silence. We have asked the usual questions, ‘When Lord?’ ‘Why Lord?’ And on the occasions when He has responded, it has usually been to take the conversation in a different direction without answering the original question. It has become clear that we need to change our approach in prayer.

It is with this as the backdrop for the last eighteen months that the Lord recently began to talk to me about Hannah, and He spoke to me about her in the context of radio! You may think that bizarre, but God speaks to us in pictures. Jesus spoke in parables, painting pictures that would mean something lasting to His audience. The Lord knows I am a fan of radio and have been since I first discovered music in my youth.

Here I want to unpack what the Lord has been revealing. I know there is more to download, and my prayer is that as you read, God will add to you more than the words on the page. I’m certain that what I’m about to share will help us in these days.

I believe that the body of Christ is missing some vital things in this hour, but if we shift our perspective on some issues, we will finally see nations come to Christ. However, this shift begins with you and me. We must take the responsibility to act and not leave it for someone else.

In the book of First Samuel, we encounter the story of Hannah. It is a popular story and I trust you are familiar with it. Hannah was childless because the Lord had shut up her womb, and she encountered difficulties from her rival as a result.

I see a lot of Christian posts on social media that say the same thing – ‘Hannah wanted a child, but God wanted a prophet.’ I find this to be a shallow reading of the text, and because it is the popular narrative at present, we may be overlooking vital elements of the story.

The story isn’t about Hannah or Samuel, or even that God wanted a prophet. In the first verse of chapter three we learn that ‘the Word of the Lord was rare in those days; and there was no widespread revelation.’ In John chapter three we know that ‘God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’ And the truth is that long before there was ever a child in a manger in Bethlehem, ‘God so loved the world.’ This is what the story in First Samuel is all about.

We read of a nation that has fallen into apostacy through the corruption of the priests, and here we have a God looking for someone He can work with and through to bring the people He loves and is jealous for back into relationship with Him. In Hannah, God finds that person and she is about to pay a huge, huge price for her collaboration. Just as I had overlooked the struggles presented to me in the scriptures in Habakkuk, the body of Christ in this day seems to have an aversion to the struggles and the suffering that is part of our walk with Jesus and dismisses them, therefore. But suffering is the way of the cross, and suffering brings harvest. You cannot take up your cross and then expect it to be an unused accessory in the story of your life.

I think there is a doctrine circulating that has superseded the ‘Prosperity Gospel’ in its waywardness, and it is a doctrine that supposes suffering to be illegal for the body of Christ. Recently I was in a meeting and the preacher said, ‘If you are suffering, then something is wrong, and you need to check yourself.’ What nonsense! There is a similar doctrine that says God will not give you more than you can bear. This statement too, simply does not line up with scripture. Yes, He will not allow us to be overloaded with temptation and will always provide a way out (1 Corinthians 10v13), but He will give us more than we can bear so that our only hope is in Him (2 Corinthians 1v8). We must step away from these tainted doctrines and get back to Biblical truth.

In addition to receiving a scripture for the calendar year, The Lord usually gives me a scripture for my birthday, and one I can carry forward for the following twelve months. This year it was slightly different. This year the Lord came to me in the Spirit and He gave me a piece of clothing as a birthday gift. Instinctively I knew this garment to be His, and it was the seamless tunic the Roman soldiers cast lots for at Calvary.

There’s more to understand concerning this, but clothing speaks of identity and authority. Will I identify myself with the Christ of the cross? It speaks of intimacy. It speaks of suffering. It is the last outfit you wear prior to crucifixion, and only a soldier can take possession of it.

The lot hasn’t fallen to me like I had lost the toss of a coin, I have been chosen, and I believe others are being offered the same opportunity. The remnant is rising and the lines for us are falling in pleasant places, the places of suffering.

This garment is the last outfit before crucifixion, but the next outfit is one of resurrected glory!

When Jesus said “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16v24) This wasn’t a throwaway statement. He meant every word. To take up your cross is to invite pain and suffering into your life. It is to understand that there is a real loss of life that will bring anguish and mourning. When He gave this invitation, He later qualified the depth of the experience, when in Gethsemane He told the disciples His soul was troubled even to the point of death.

When He told the crowd to ‘store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…’ (Matthew 6v19) He was drawing them to a viewpoint that had its feet in the here and now, but its focus in eternity. And why? Because ‘Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’ (v21) In First Samuel God was inviting Hannah to pick up her cross and follow Him!

I believe her desire for a child was God given. In Judaism it is considered ungodly to marry and then not have children, and back in her time, even more so. Initially her petition for a child is portrayed as a selfish request. Her husband, Elkanah, has two wives and her rival, who has children, is tormenting Hannah because she doesn’t. Hannah’s petition appears to be a ‘deliver me from the torment of my rival’ type of prayer. Scripture also tells us that the situation embarrassed and grieved her.

But let us grow in admiration for Hannah and remember that in a nation and a time where the Word of the Lord was rare and when there was no widespread revelation, here is a woman actively seeking the Lord year after year. She may have been the only one. Certainly, the priest Eli and his wicked sons weren’t. Nothing at all in scripture points to Hannah being anyone or anything special other than this – she was actively seeking the Lord.

There comes a tipping point in this story, and it comes through her husband. Hannah has been petitioning the Lord for several years concerning a son, and Elkanah decides it is time for him to have some input. ‘Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? And why is your heart grieved? Am I not better to you than ten sons?’ (1 Samuel 1v8) Are the questions her husband asks of her.

These questions are deep and carry eternal implications. Prior to Elkanah’s discourse in verse eight we learn that he loved Hannah, but in these four questions his true heart is revealed. No matter how much he loved Hannah, he loved himself ten times more! Elkanah is saying to Hannah I am ten times more important than your deepest desire. But There is something else here that will reveal Hannah’s heart also. When Elkanah asked the question ‘Am I not better to you than ten sons?’ He was saying that He was better, or worth ten times more than anything God could do for her. In the moment Elkanah places a value on himself, he raises the question of what value Hannah places on her relationship with God.

Whenever we navigate a desert season the voice of compromise seeks to dominate the conversation. It happened to Jesus in the wilderness when satan said to Him, ‘All this I will give you, if you will bow down and worship me.’ (Matthew 4v9) The situation is the same for all of us. Compromise offers a solution, but is always asking the question, ‘What price Calvary?’ ‘What price for our relationship with Christ?’ And God (the Trinity) is very interested in our answer!

This situation drives Hannah back into the place of prayer. Her rival has tormented her for years, and now she knows her husband thinks more highly of himself than perhaps she realised. This is betrayal on an intimate level, but thankfully, Hannah is pursuing intimacy with God.

This is the point where Hannah is supposed to give up on her God given dream. Desert seasons test our resolve to follow God at any price, and compromise shows up like a game show host with a hidden cheque in a shiny gold envelope. ‘You’ve come this far, but you know you could go home with nothing. Do you want to take the golden envelope and go home with something, or do you want to carry on?’

If we haven’t pursued intimacy with God we will fall every time this situation arises, but Hannah has pursued that intimacy and her prayer becomes a vow. ‘O Lord of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head.’ (1 Samuel 1v11) Here is her moment of triumph. She doesn’t give up, she gives back!

Hannah’s prayers have shifted through the gears. The initial ‘deliver me’ prayer changed as her rival’s provocation struck deeper. Then, after Elkanah’s input verse 10 tells us, ‘And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the Lord and wept in anguish.’ And from the depth of this experience, she makes a vow that will shift a nation back to God, but still she isn’t done. Hannah has just paid a huge price and placed the greater price on her relationship with God.

I have written of my own experience of prayers moving through the gears in my blog ‘The Secret Petitions of the Heart.’ Psalm 37 verse 4 in the Amplified says, ‘Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart.’

I learned over the years that these secret petitions come in more than one form. There are those petitions which are secret because we have never spoken about them with anyone else. They are petitions between us and God only. And then there are secret petitions that even we are not aware of because God hasn’t revealed them to us, but as we build intimacy with Him and a deeper cry emerges from our hearts, He is able to reveal new things, and new desires to us. For a deeper understanding of this point, I would encourage you to read my blog on this scripture via the link above.

Hannah takes these petitions to an even deeper level. She has shifted through the gears, but she isn’t done, and goes back into prayer. ‘And it happened, as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli watched her mouth. Now Hannah spoke in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore, Eli thought she was drunk.’ (1 Samuel 1v13). Eli challenged her, but in response Hannah said, ‘No, my lord, I am a woman of sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor intoxicating drink but have poured out my soul before the Lord.’

I suggest that Hannah wasn’t drunk on alcohol but was intoxicated by grief and mourning. She told Eli she had poured out her soul before the Lord. We know the soul is comprised of the mind, the will, and the emotions. Her will made the vow. It was a determination of her own that said if You give a child to me, I will give him back to You. But now her mind and her emotions would have to wrestle with a very real loss.

In modern terms she was saying that if You will remember me by giving me a child, the dreams of the life I imagined with him, I will forego and give back to you. What dreams? The spontaneous photo opportunities that saturate social media. First day at school; sports day, Christmas nativity, Mother’s Day, watching him play with his siblings, and all the other normal family activities that you and I take for granted daily. Hannah was prepared to give up on all these dreams she held as part of the promise of having a son.

The moment we step into or take hold of a God given dream; it becomes the treasured memories of a lifetime. So, this was no light vow, and she did miss out on all these things and more.

If ever you have had the heart-breaking experience of a spouse going home to be with the Lord whilst you still have a young family, then you will understand much more than I the cost of what I am trying to relate in these words. It is not just the milestones of life that can reopen the wound, but the intimate daily moments of sharing a meal or watching a movie. Hannah wasn’t bereaved of her son, but she would live with the loss for the rest of her life.

Scripture tells us that she would visit Samuel once a year and for each visit she would take him a new coat. As previously mentioned, clothing can speak of identity. She could have taken him anything, but through the gift of the coat she was saying ‘remember your identity. Remember where you came from. Remember me, your mother.’ In choosing a coat for Samuel, she would need to guess his weight and height and then over-estimate slightly to ensure it would last him the whole year, a coat he could grow into. Just this process alone of guessing his size would drive home just how much she was missing out on watching him growing up day by day.

Like Hannah, I passed through an experience where I had to give back to God, and to be honest I thought that would be the end of the matter.

In 2009 the Lord gave me a promise of family, and I waited eight years to marry. We discussed and prayed about many things. We had a vision for our future which involved children, and travel, and ministry. However, the marriage quickly unravelled. For most of 2019 I did all I knew how to do to save the marriage. I prayed, I fasted, I found scripture promises and confessed them daily, and I took communion daily. In November of that year the church where I fellowship held a twenty-one day fast, and as that fast came to its conclusion, I felt the unction to continue to forty days.

Throughout this fast I continued to stand in faith for my marriage, but then the Lord floored me with a question. He asked me something I had never considered. He asked me, ‘If I take your marriage from you, will I be enough?’ Wow! My head spun for a few days (figuratively not literally), and then I began to process the loss of all the dreams and visions I had held on tightly to through the dark days.

Eventually I reasoned that if God was going to take my marriage from me, I wouldn’t be able to stop Him, but I also reasoned that by the time I reached the end of my days here on earth I wouldn’t be disappointed. Psalm 91 says, ‘with long life I will satisfy them and show them my salvation.’

I went back to the Lord as the fast came to its conclusion and told Him, yes Lord. If You are going to take my marriage away, then You will have to come and fill the void and be enough. He said, ‘Let go then.’ During this period the Lord had been showing me that the arc of the covenant in the Holy of holies is a picture of marriage. The husband and wife being represented by the two Cherubim over the mercy seat. Each Cherub has their wings outstretched in flight, like two individuals reaching for their full potential in Christ. They are only held in place by His unseen hands which form the mercy seat, and there is nobody else and nothing else in that intimate space. This was what I saw in the spirit. He told me to let go, so I did. I let go. He let go of her, and she flew away and was gone.

The fast concluded and within days there was a sequence of events I never imagined. There was a phone call between us, which I recorded, where she admitted she was never coming back to the marriage, and had been happy to take my money, which ran into many thousands. Then shortly after this two people, unknown to each other, came to me and told me my life would have been in danger had she returned.

Thank God I chose to give the marriage back to Him. Thank God He knows and sees the end from the beginning. There is always a bigger picture.

Four years later God is revealing that giving back to Him is not the end of the promise He spoke in 2009, and if anything, it is returning on a greater level than I had ever considered. I didn’t know this back in 2019, and it was the same for Hannah. It meant she would continue to live with the torment of her rival and the dismissive nature of her husband. Some of her longings would never be fulfilled. And why?

The name Samuel means ‘to hear,’ and Strong’s Concordance says it is the past participle of the word (or name) Shemuel. In essence the name means ‘to hear and be heard.’ In Hannah saying yes to God, and giving back, God would have someone who would hear Him, and through whom his voice could be made known in the nations of the earth.

In the story of Hannah, we understand that, just as it is in our day, nations and parts of the church are falling into apostacy and consequently satan is targeting our children. Satan wants to disconnect an entire generation from its identity by disconnecting it from its parents and from God. But if our generation will pay the price, take up its cross, and consider deep personal loss to be treasure in heaven, God will raise that same generation to hear Him, and make His voice known in the nations. The Word of the Lord will be common and there will be widespread revelation across the globe, and we will see the billion-soul harvest that has been prophesied.

But are we prepared to pay the price? And what value do we put on our relationship with Jesus?

And this is why God began to talk about Hannah in terms of radio. He has an invitation for us.

We live in an age where there is a proliferation of broadcast media available, Radio, TV, Internet, Podcast, streaming services etc. Back when I was a youth this wasn’t so. The Internet didn’t exist and there were only three TV stations. If you wanted to discover the latest music you had to rely on word of mouth or live with your ear glued to the radio, or both.

Back then radio was broadcast on two main frequencies – FM and medium wave. There was also longwave, but you would rarely use it.

The Lord is making the point that our prayers are like these radio frequencies, and He is inviting us to use the one we don’t use – longwave. Let me explain through a couple of memories I have.

I recall an evening in 1977 when my family gathered around the radio and were listening to our local FM station In Birmingham UK – BRMB. Our host for the evening was sports presenter Tony Butler. Butler was an icon of local broadcasting, and quite a character. On this night we were listening for news of the big football game involving our team Aston Villa. The club were playing in a cup final, and there was no live TV coverage, and no radio commentary. That’s difficult to imagine these days, I know. Villa had drawn 0-0 with Everton in the original game at Wembley. The replay a few days later at Old Trafford, Manchester ended 1-1, and so this evening the match taking place at Hillsborough, Sheffield was the third attempt to declare a winner of the competition.

Villa started brightly and took the lead, only for Everton to score twice in reply, and then in the last couple of minutes Villa defender Chris Nicholl shot speculatively from near the halfway line and miraculously the ball ended up in the net. The final whistle went with the score at 2-2. Extra time would follow.

Back in Birmingham thousands of families tuned into the game. I will never forget Tony Butler’s broadcast from that night as he urged all Villa fans to keep the faith and believe for victory. He had a 1960’s style football rattle that he would swing round and make a racket with. It was the rallying sound for the faithful fans. “Come on Villa fans, repeat after me. Oh, yea verily I say unto thee, Everton 2 Aston Villa 3!” We joined in as a family, howling with laughter. I don’t know if Tony Butler was a prophet, or whether the faith of the Villa fans prevailed, but by the end of extra time we had scored again and the final score was just as he’d prophesied, Everton 2 Aston Villa 3. We had won the cup!

Even as I recall this story the emotions of that night come flooding back, but if you don’t follow football or support Aston Villa the story would mean little too you. If you lived outside of Birmingham, you couldn’t receive the signal anyway. This was FM radio, a localised broadcast with limited appeal, and our prayers can be just the same.

If we are to impact nations It is time for us to move beyond localised prayers, who’s limited interest tends to be ourselves. Time is short. You will find the pampered church broadcasting on this frequency. Let that not be us. Let us learn from Hannah. She started out praying on FM, but the years rolled by, and her prayers went unanswered.

Medium wave radio provided coverage for the national radio stations, and mainly those of the BBC. You knew exactly where to find Radio 1 or Radio 2 on the dial. If you were travelling across the country, you might have to retune occasionally, but you could still find the station.

Medium wave prayers are a little louder, and this is where the entitled church gather to pray. Their prayers are louder, and they pray to be seen. They will quote scripture after scripture demanding their rights. I’m reminded of a short video which circulates on social media. It is several African men wearing Manchester United shirts. They are in some remote location, and they are praying fervently for the outcome of the next match. They are petitioning heaven that their enemies be taken down and defeated. It’s a funny video, but at the same time you know there is an element of truth in what they are sharing with the world. This video epitomises the entitled church. They refuse loss or suffering on every level and demand victory regardless of the will of God in a situation.

They will stand in the public space just like the Pharisees. They will demand their pay rise and promotion, and their faster car and their bigger home and their improved status in life, and all the comforts of a king, and they will back it up with a dozen scriptures. They declare suffering to be illegal and outside of the will of God, regarding it inconceivable. They do not understand the value of Calvary. Everything but God is becoming their God. The entitled church walks a dangerous path.

Then there is longwave. Only the remnant will consider venturing onto longwave. It is a different beast altogether. Long wave radio is noisy! The FM wavelength offers a clearer signal when compared with other wavelengths. There is silence as you turn the dial between stations. Medium wave differs in that interference rises as the station signal weakens. It is a sign that you need to retune to find the stronger signal.

Longwave is distinctly noisy. There is white noise in the background with a rather unpleasant vibrating noise over the top, and if ever you listen while travelling, every bridge, electricity pylon or tall building will ramp up the noise. Everything on the planet has a voice on longwave!

This interference is unceasing until you happen upon a radio station. Invariably you will find Radio 4 broadcasting cricket commentary or the shipping forecast, but beyond that there is a myriad of stations broadcasting in languages You cannot decipher. There are Asian stations broadcasting from exotic locations, and other stations that sound distinctly Russian.

As a youth I made a discovery one night, as I turned the dial through the white noise and vibrations. Somewhere beyond the Russian sounding voices and the Asian music, I stumbled upon a language I assumed to be European. I didn’t understand the language but as the person spoke, I heard him utter the words, ‘Echo and the Bunnymen,’ and then several words later, ‘The Cutter.’ Wow! A song I liked a lot from a band I liked a lot. I had found something in the darkness, and I was intrigued. I listened to the song and when the announcer returned there was more unintelligible language until I heard the jingle for Radio Stockholm. I was hooked. Here I was sitting in a bedroom in Erdington, Birmingham UK listening to a radio station in Sweden!

This is the picture of what God is inviting us into. He is inviting us into a frequency of noise, confusion, chaos, and unintelligible voices. The Holy Spirit thrives and does His best work in these spaces. The DJ in Stockholm had no idea he was impacting a young lad in Birmingham, and God is looking for those who will commit to this lifestyle of suffering, surrender, and giving back dreams that will allow Him to make His voice known in places we may never know, and bring revelation to people we may never meet this side of eternity. He is looking for a remnant that will actively pursue treasures in heaven.

Hannah discovered a new prayer language, and one that cannot be contrived or faked. She was betrayed and provoked on an intimate level but responded in the right way through her vow and the prayer that followed. Her lips moved but there was no noise because there is no language on earth to convey the petitions she was making. She wasn’t praying in tongues and the Holy Spirit wasn’t groaning through her because she didn’t know what to pray. She was speaking a language that is exclusive to the few who will pour out their soul.

If we are asked to give back to God then we should know there is a greater agenda, and I believe the remnant are being invited to surrender back to God dreams He has given them. Are we ready to birth a generation of Samuels across the nations? That they may hear God’s voice and that we all may make known His voice in the nations of the earth, and specifically those places where the Word of the Lord is rare and there is no widespread revelation.

Hannah’s story, and our story is not about us at all. It is about God so loving the world. He has already sent His Son and now they (Father and Son) seek a remnant who will bring widespread revelation to the people. God is longing to speak to the nations and bring a revelation of His Son, who in return will reveal the Father. But there is a cost. Are we prepared to pay it?

Many are called, but few are chosen and if we are to switch the dial on our lifestyle of prayer to longwave, we must put away the idea that suffering and loss are not our portion. We must stop rebuking the cup or binding the cup and loosing some kind of easier alternative. At some point we must drink the cup.

When Jesus introduced the Holy Spirit to the disciples, He introduced Him as the Comforter (Counsellor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, Standby). This description alone tells me we are expected to navigate some difficult terrain in our walk with the Lord.

Jesus told the disciples that He would be arrested and crucified, but they just didn’t get it, and then Mary comes along and breaks open her alabaster box and anoints Him for His burial. At last! Someone gets it. At last, someone understands.

In Psalm 2 The Lord says, ‘Ask of Me, and I will give you the nations…’ Perhaps what I have described is the roadmap, however unpopular it may be.

My prayer for us all, is that as we find ourselves in desert seasons, navigating difficult situations, and contemplating giving back long held God given dreams, my prayer is that our brothers and sisters will not come along side us to pray and agree a way out. My prayer is that they will come like Mary and do whatever they can to encourage us to take up our cross and carry it through to the bittersweet end.

I have these two pictures in my mind concerning the crucifixion. The first is that the Roman consort of soldiers treated Jesus so badly was because He was drenched in ladies’ perfume. The other picture I have is that as He hung on the cross the smell of His lacerated flesh and blood was masked by the same perfume.

My prayer for us all is that God will deliver us through and not out of these situations, and my prayer and my hope is that each of us will find ourselves in a moment in prayer, where our lips move but no words are spoken because we have found the same prayer language as Hannah.

My prayer for us all is that in eternity we will discover the people and nations that were delivered because of our commitment to carry our cross to a glorious end, demonstrating to the Elkanahs of this world that the value we put on Christ’s sacrifice can never be surpassed.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labours with birth pangs together until now.

Romans 8 v18-22

Creation is waiting. Nations are waiting. The lost are waiting. Who will switch the dial to longwave?

Shalom

Andy Rudge Stourport-on-Severn