Happy Wednesday High Places,
As we begin September’s focus on prayer, I invite us all to a month of prayer in however it is you pray. Some pray religiously (pun intended!) every day using wrote prayers or devotionals. Others pray on their commutes to work, in the shower each morning, or simply offer up prayers throughout the day as things move or inspire them. Our goal this month isn’t to say what’s the right way or wrong way to pray, but simply to encourage us all to pray.
The Bible mostly says there is only one “bad” way to pray, and that is selfishly, or to pray without any regarding to making changes in our lives. (See James 2:14-17, and again James 4:2). Outside of that, provided we aren’t making a show ourselves as Jesus warned, anything humble and heartfelt is something beneficial. God longs for that kind of communication, whether we are “at church” (quotes intended!) or at the grocery store, or on the golf course. God wants us talking.
However, you are talking and listening with God already, our aim for September is multiply that. Pay careful attention to the times you pray this month and let’s agree to pray “mindfully” as a church for each other and for our community.
We’re going to follow our children’s lead in prayer, using their event four-part praying guide:
PRAY = Praise, Repent, Ask, Yield
We have much to gain by taking such a simple approach to prayer, and I believe much to gain by “becoming as a little child” as Jesus instructs when it comes to our prayer life.
This week, we will start with prayer… but because I can’t help myself, we will take a very short amount of time to look at the history of prayer in our earliest texts. Challenge question before Sunday:
“Where do we find the first prayer in the Bible?”
Believe it or not, you could pick a couple of different places that answer this question and not be wrong. I would like to say I will have a cupcake ready to give away to the person with the right answer, but I know myself enough to know I will forget to bring it between now and then!
In the meantime, be mindful of where, when, and how you pray between now and Sunday. We’re all in this boat together and together we’ll navigate as ONE body of Christ, with MANY members. Each of us brings something to the table.
SPEAKING OF TABLES… Keep our Periodic Tables initiative in prayer. There is serious talk of pushing this back a couple of months due to the spike in the Delta variant. When all this began many months ago, I said that our hospitalization rate would be the determining factor on what we did or didn’t do – meaning if our doctors and nurses were overwhelmed, we would dial back on too much closeness. We’re at that point again unfortunately, and while we won’t be returning to all virtual meetings like we did at Christmas, I am really struggling with the idea of getting 100’s of people around a dinner table. Please keep our steering team in prayer as we try to figure the best way forward.
Pray for Orion as he leads our young adults with some exciting opportunities coming up this fall and winter, pray for Chad as he too is navigating all the quarantines, contact tracings, and other issues affecting a regularly attended youth group. And pray for Kady as she ministers day in and day out in our school system alongside scores of teachers who are struggling to teach in half-full classrooms due to the sickness spreading in the schools. I have spoken with two teachers this week on the verge of tears because they just want their classrooms back to normal.
We have a ton more exciting things coming up, but I don’t want to wear us out.
Love to all you beautiful people. There are so many of you I miss, but certainly understand. And so many that have lifted my spirits lately with your smiles during these difficult times.
As Bob Williams said this week, “We need more HOPS.” Hope, Optimism, Purpose, and Spirituality. I see a group forming here around this HOPS thing. Haha!
David
“In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. ”
― John Bunyan