Pray for Our Community
‘Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.’
– Author Unknown
In January we started the New Year by breaking this quote down and evaluating it line by line. Last month we considered how this quote calls us to express love. This month I’d like to encourage you to use this quote as a jumping board to pray for our community.
Have you considered that praying for other people may be the good God has called you to do? By what means and in what ways can you pray? In what places and times? For what people? For how long?
My daughter Mary, who is now 20 years old, was born a Prayer Warrior. She has a heart that is naturally bent toward prayer. Her heart is wide open to the God who made her. That same heart is open to the people God places in her path. At a church camp some years ago we were in the cafeteria when a young girl fell. Mary’s instant impulse was to kneel beside the girl and pray for her. When Mary hears sirens, she prays for the emergency workers to get safely to where they are needed, and to do their jobs well. By watching my daughter, I have learned to be a Prayer Warrior. I have been awed and humbled by the opportunities God has given me to pray for others. I have been just as awed and humbled by the comforting prayers others have offered on my behalf.
A little poem about prayer that I learned years ago goes like this…
“I’ll pray for you,” we quickly say,
and prayer is all we do.
But prayer combined with acts of love
is prayer with follow-through!
Praying for our community begins with the simple desire to do so. Once that desire is in place, we become alert to needs. That awareness leads to prayer for those needs to be met. The more we talk with God, the more easily we are able to see His hand at work. The more we see His hand at work, the more confidently we pray. God opens doors for us to talk to others about the ways we see Him at work, and that sharing strengthens our own faith as well as the faith of the hearer. Our community is strengthened by our prayers for each other.
De Colores!
Trisa Chancey – Golden Isles Walk to Emmaus #2 – Table of Mary