Wednesday March 18, 2020
Hello Faith Family,
Are you wondering what you can do to help during this time of global and national crisis? Though many people may doubt it, Christians believe that prayer makes a tangible difference - that God truly uses the prayers of his people to bring about his purposes in the world. Jesus certainly believed it. Prayer was not only a regular, powerful practice in his life but something he commanded, instructed, and led his disciples in doing. Furthermore, prayer was an electric part of the ministry of the church of the Apostles as the Spirit of God used their prayers to bring about different expressions of God's love into the world. And I'll let you in on a secret - THE SAME IS TRUE TODAY! How can we know that? Because God never changes!
So one of the things we can do to help right now is pray! Which begs the question: What do we pray during a time like this? Certainly, "Help!" "Heal!" "Save!" are all legitimate cries to our God. Prayers don't have to be long to be meaningful.
Remember, the power of prayer is found not in those who are doing the speaking, but in the God who is doing the receiving!
At the same time, sometimes we want to have more than one word sentences to place before the Lord. We want help praying for our world, our family, our nation. With that in mind, I plan on sending out weekly groupings of prayers for you to use as you feel led. Some will be in more traditional styles, some will use more modern language, but the hope is that you will find something in them that inspires your own prayers.
And be sure and listen for God after you pray!
The four parts of biblical prayer are 1) we speak 2) God listens 3) God speaks 4) we listen. Donโt want to miss out on half of the interaction ๐.
This first group of prayers is a selection from the 1993 edition of the
Presbyterian Book of Common Prayer
. (Click on the highlighted box below).
If you have any prayers you'd like to share with our faith family - send them my way! Whether they are from your favorite author, or one of your children or grandchildren - I'd love to share them with our family as part of our joining our hearts together before the Lord through prayer.
Finally, the Intercessory Prayer team will be praying (from wherever we are) on Wednesdays at noon. Feel free to join us! Contact Prayer Deacon Suma Jayakar (
sumajayakar@gmail.com
) and she will add you to our email list.
Praying with you, and praying for you, that the words of Corrie ten Boom will be true for all of us:
"Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to our known God."
Pastor Shelley
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