The Ultimate List Maker


Dad taught me the art of list making. He said it would help me remember to do my chores and school assignments. The best part was crossing off completed items. I still make to-do lists.

But I also have another list—names of friends and family who’ve asked for prayer. Some are fighting cancer, others chronic disease. Some have tough decisions to make. A few are facing financial woes. And then there are others journeying with heart wrenching losses. 




I’ll always remember praying at Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall—a poignant remnant of the old Jewish Temple—a place well acquainted with suffering. I heard prayers spoken in foreign languages—from people who’d traveled thousands of miles to pray against this ancient wall. As had I.


Quiet prayers, fingers touching the wall, cheeks wet with tears. I touched the cold stones and prayed alongside them. I saw hundreds of folded notes in the cracks of the massive wall—lists of prayers left behind. I tucked my own list into a crack.




Easter reminds me that I don’t have to travel to Israel to pray. I don’t even need a written list. God knows it all. He sent his Son to help us live in this tough, broken world. I can pray anytime, anywhere. Jesus even prays for us, especially when we can’t find the words.


Perhaps you are facing a tough season in life. Easter is our reminder that Jesus came to walk with us—the whole way. He didn’t come to condemn us, but to save us.


And God is the ultimate list maker: “See, I have written your name on my hand;” Isaiah 49:16.


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