Morning Prayer

Here in the High Country it is finally warm enough early in the morning to sit outside to meet the Lord. I can sit here and listen to the birds sing. I can look out at my garden. We have planted asparagus, about 18 tomato plants, peppers, leeks, and we have some mustard and collard greens coming up from last year. I love being outside!

Here is a wonderful morning prayer from the Psalms:

“Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love,
for in you I trust.
Make me know the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul.
Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God!
Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground!”

Psalm 143:8, 10

The Arrest of Polycarp

Here is an amazing account of what happened when Polycarp was arrested before his martyrdom. This is from Eusebius’ Church History.

“Soon the pursuers arrived and arrested two of the servants there, one of whom, under torture, showed them to Polycarp’s quarters. It was night, and they found him lying in an upper bedroom. He could have moved to another house, but he had refused, saying, ‘God’s will be done.’ When he heard that they had come, he went down and talked with them in such a cheerful, serene manner that they were astounded in view of his old age and confident air and wondered why there was such anxiety to arrest an old man of such character. He ordered that a table be set for them and invited them to dine with gusto, asking only for a single hour to pray undistrubed. This granted, he stood up and prayed, filled with the grace of the Lord, to the astonishment of those present, many of whom grew distressed that so dignified and godlike a man was going to his death.”

Prayer “often takes the form of importunity, passionate pleading to God, even wrestling with God. Such an attitude presupposes that God’s ultimate will is unchanging, but the way in which he chooses to realize this will is dependent on the prayers of his children. He wants us as covenant partners, not as automatons or slaves. In this restricted sense prayer may be said to change the will of God. But more fundamentally it is sharing with God our needs and desires so that we might be more fully conformed to his ultimate will and purpose.”

- D. G. Bloesch, “Prayer,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 867.

Prayaroundtheworld.com

Please check out this site my friend Clarke Kennedy is building: prayaroundtheworld.com. Here is part of the description of what the sight is for:

This site is a tool for the body of Christ around the world. It is designed to equip individuals, churches, organizations, families, and communities with a very simple but powerful way to increase the amount of prayer that is lifted up for the things they care about and for the things that God cares about.

One of the most powerful aspects of this site is the ability that it gives anyone to create their own prayer forums about anything they care about. A prayer forum is a group of related prayer topics. For example, you might create a prayer forum for your church under the “Churches” forum in the “Prayer Room” forum. Once you have created a prayer forum for your church, you could add topics for prayer related to your church within that forum.

This may be a useful tool for you in your church, ministry, missions projects, particular crises or anything else for which a community might want to pray together.

Meeting and Praying for Refugees

We had a fascinating and diverse group of people into our home for our mid-week prayer meeting. Several ethnic groups were represented: Chinese, Malaysian, African, Serbian, and Iraqi. The reason for this diversity is that Chui Hea Hill (of Malaysian descent) has a wonderful ministry to refugees. She and her husband work with World Relief, U.S. Center for World Missions, and International Justice Mission. She brought with her refugees she is currently assisting: a woman who worked in Iraq as a jounalist and was kidnapped, a young Muslim Iraqi boy who’s father was killed by a car bomb, two African boys whose father was a king in Zimbabwe and is running for his life because of his stand against an evil government.

We heard their stories and prayed for each of their situations (we also played basketball, ate snacks, and had good fellowship). We were challenged by how much suffering goes on in the world that we are not aware of and encouraged to be available for God to use us to demonstrate his love and truth to other.