Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Today's reading titled Remembered in Prayer was written by Patricia Rabin.

In the large African church, the pastor fell to his knees, praying to God. Remember us!

As the pastor pleaded, the crowd responded crying, remember us, Lord! Watching this moment on YouTube,

I was surprised that I shed tears too. The prayer was recorded

months earlier, yet it recalled childhood times when I heard our family's pastor make the same plea to God.

Remember us, Lord. Hearing that prayer as a child, I'd wrongly assume that God sometimes

forgets about us, but God is all knowing. He always sees us and he loves us beyond measure.

Even more, as we see in the Hebrew word Zakachar, meaning remember, when God remembers us,

he acts for us. Zachar also means to act on a person's behalf. Thus, when God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in

the ark, he then sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. When God remembered Baron

Rachel, he listened to her and enabled her to conceive. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son.

What a great plea of trust to ask God in prayer to remember us. He'll decide how he answers.

We can pray knowing, however, that our humble request asks God to move.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Genesis chapter 30, verses 1 through 2, and 22 through 24.

When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister.

So she said to Jacob, give me children or I'll die.

Jacob became angry with her and said,

Am I in the place of God who has kept you from having children? Now picking up at verse 22.

Then God remembered Rachel. He listened to her and enabled her to conceive.

She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said,

God has taken away my disgrace.

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