We are halfway through our “Year of Prayer” and I have been delighted with your response to and participation in this. Your encouraging words have been a blessing to me, because that lets me know the prayers are resonating with you, but also because it lets me know you’re reading them! I want to take this brief opportunity to encourage you as we head into the second half of 2017. First, a reminder that prayer isn’t something we’re just doing this year. The purpose, stated at the outset of the year, is to cultivate the habit of prayer. It might be useful to gather all these prayer mails into a book or something, so that we can look back on them for a few reasons.
One is that many of the prayers are “re-usable.” We have prayed more than once over many things. As I’ve mentioned, the written prayers are suitable to be read and prayed aloud as written but it’s been my desire that they serve as more of a template for more detailed and involved prayer as the Spirit leads. Another rea-son for looking back over them is to see how some of these prayers have been answered, and how God is continuing to work in some areas. Likewise, we can look back and see where some things may require more patience and more fervent prayer. Some of the things we prayed about were specific enough that they might not be usefully repeated, but can still serve the template function.
I’m committed to doing these at least six days a week (with occasional rare exceptions) until the end of the year. After that, we’ll see. Which brings me back to something else we’ve talked about. Would you consider contributing to this endeavor? There are a number of ways you can. You can write them in the manner I usually do, which is to offer a brief expla-nation or devotional preparation for the prayer, then write the prayer. You could simplysend the prayer along, and I can add an appropriate introduction. Or, you could send me something that’s on your heart for us to pray about. For instance, I don’t always follow the news closely. If you are aware of something happening in the courts, in the halls of government, in the world at large and the Lord lays it on your heart to pray about it, don’t assume I’ve seen it and dismissed it. And don’t be offended if it doesn’t “make the cut” as it were. Your suggestions will almost certainly open the door to something else, if that’s the case.
I want to remind you, too, that we meet for corporate prayer on Monday evenings. We start at 7, share praise reports and prayer requests, often a short teaching or exhortation on prayer, then sing a couple of songs, then we pray. We always pray for our church and our nation, then we pray as the Spirit leads and then over the prayer requests that have been submitted. We are almost always done by 8, sometimes sooner, and nobody has to commit to being there every week. We’d love to see you there from time to time, is what I’m saying! Along that line, I usually forget to mention it from the pulpit, but many of us choose to fast on the first Monday of each month in preparation for prayer. I’d like to encourage you to join us in that, whether you can make the prayer meeting or not.
Finally (for now), please know that I love you, my church family, and that I pray for you often. If there is some specific way you would like me to pray, let me know, and it doesn’t need to be shared with the church unless you want it to. Meanwhile, I ask that you con-tinue to pray for me and for my family. God has been and continues to be good, but we all have an enemy, and as pastor of a church that is growing as a threat to the kingdom of darkness, I recognize that I can be a prime target of attack. My trust is in God, but I cov-et your prayers. God has great things in store for us; I love the word spoken to us a cou-ple of Sundays ago by prophecy; we are in an accelerated season! We must continue to press in, make our requests known, and determine to hear from Him, remaining confident that He hears us and grants us everything we ask according to His will!
With you in Christ,
