Remembering Answered Prayers

April 13, 2021

Why is it important to remember our answered prayers? How might remembering these prayers help us in a pandemic? Find out in this Q&A with Richard Gamble, author of Remember.

About Richard:

Richard Gamble is the former chaplain to Leicester City Football Club, and was a chaplain at the London Olympics. He is also the man behind the Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer, a monument dedicated to answered prayers that will be finished by the end of 2022. Remember is his first book.

1. What prompted you to write Remember?

I believe that when God answers a prayer He is more interested in the journey of the person praying, and their deepening relationship with Him, than He is in the answer itself. What I’ve found on my own journey is that there is lots of teaching written about the journey up to the moment a prayer is answered, but very little about the journey we take after we’ve received that answer.

As I began investigating this in the Scriptures, I discovered a thematic strand running through the whole Bible about the importance of remembering what God has done. That is what I wanted to explore in this book.

2. Why is it important for us to remember our answered prayers?

Put simply, I believe that God tells us to do so in His word. I believe the reason He asks us to do this is because remembering what He has done helps us to recalibrate our minds back to who He is, and specifically who He is to us.

Hebrew 10:35 tells us “So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.” In that instance where God answers one of our prayers, our faith is sky high. It’s one of the most incredible feelings in the world. If we can remember those answered prayers in the right way, we can maintain those levels of faith, so the next time we pray it is with confidence, rather than starting again from scratch.

3. Without revealing too much, what would you say is your favourite or most significant answered prayer in the book?

There are so many to choose from, but the answered prayers that are most significant to me always change depending on where I am on my journey with God at any one time. However, the most significant answered prayers in my mind are those where a whole nation cried out to God. This has happened a number of times in our history, and some of those stories are shared in this book.

The interesting thing about God answering the collective prayers of a whole nation is that the answer is often quickly forgotten. In the book I discuss an instance in 2020 where God answered a prayer for our nation, and most people have already forgotten that He did so.

4. What do you hope readers will gain from the book? Who can use this book?

I hope this book will be faith-fuel to people; that the stories of answered prayer will inspire and encourage them to pray more. It will never do us any harm to read about the good things God has done. I also hope that the people who read this book will be encouraged to reestablish the forgotten tradition of remembrance in their devotional times. This book is for anyone who has prayed, or anyone who wants to pray.

5. How might this book help us all in the pandemic?

Anxiety flourishes where fact forces truth to retreat. There is no greater evidence of this than the last 12 months. We’ve faced a deluge of facts: infections, hospitalisations, deaths, mutant strains… It’s a constant barrage which can get in the way of truth - the truth that God loves us, He has the best for us, we can find peace in Him, and with Him we have nothing to fear. Remembrance is a powerful way to recalibrate our minds back to this truth, even in the face of facts. If we can focus on the good things God has done, we can find fresh hope, and in a pandemic the one thing everyone needs is hope.