Every prayer we ask in Jesus' name starts the mighty engines of God in motion. Either God will modify that prayer until it reflects our true desire (if we are not stubborn and resistant) or else the prayer will be answered to perfection either now or sixty years from now. It will be answered in the way and in the time when it will produce the greatest joy and peace in us.

When our desire is fulfilled it proves to be a tree of eternal life.

Pleasant prospects. Pleasant prospects are part of eternal life.

For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. (Psalms 84:11)

The sinner may surround himself with fantasies and dreams of one sort or another. He may boast to himself and the universe that he is master of his destiny. He may arise in the morning and declare he is in control of his life. Whatever he desires he can bring to pass. The day will prove to be whatever he makes it.

The telephone rings and he learns his child has leukemia. His bright sunrise turns heavy with clouds of darkness and foreboding. The nightmare has begun and all his proud boasting turns to ashes in his mouth. How quickly we creatures of the dust are humbled!

But the Scriptures hold out before us a future so glorious that the most gifted writer could not describe it; the most gifted artist could not paint it; the most talented composer could not express it in a symphony.

We are confronted with an endless age of joy and peace, a volume in which, as C. S. Lewis put it, each chapter is more wonderful than the previous. We are saved by hope—the hope we have that one day the glorious promises of the Scriptures will become flesh and bone reality. Our hope is no idle dream! It all shall come to pass exactly as written.

Even in the present world God answers many prayers. We indeed would faint if we did not believe to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

And so we press forward, being filled with an eternal life that is strengthened by the certain knowledge that our future in the Lord Jesus will be all we have ever hoped or dreamed. To continue in sin is to look forward to darkness, weakness, despair, torment, death. To continue in righteousness is to look forward to joy indescribable and full of glory—living forever in a wonder-world of joy, peace, the absence of all dread and pain. Best of all, the Lord will be there.

Accomplishment. It is normal and healthy for a human being to desire to accomplish something of significance during his or her life. However, the desire for accomplishment must be given to the Lord for fulfillment. Otherwise we may spend our life on that which is worthless.

God has given man a brain, not so man can plan his own destiny but so he can comprehend the will of God and make moral judgments.

To be continued.