Welcome to week 2 of the prayer challenge! If you missed the start, I'm challenging you to 14 weeks of using the lectionary's Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession. There are lots of prayers scattered throughout the lectionary (apple/android), and all are wonderful for getting you out of a prayer rut. The Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession have been particularly helpful for getting me out of my usual "I need, I need!" prayers.
If you're just now joining us - welcome! Start where you are. Each week we'll dissect one of the prayers to help us pray more intentionally. Here goes...
I can actually think of a few of you reading this who I didn't expect to still be alive today. (Good morning, Carol!) What a beautiful way to begin our intercession - by rejoicing in the gifts already
given. No matter what circumstances meet you Tuesday morning, you're alive, and that is a gift indeed.
New life...
How often to you thank God for your new life in Christ? Me, not so much, admittedly. I became a Christian when I was 10,and before that I was a Sunday school regular and developing consciousness and all that - so my "new life in Christ" is pretty much just my regular, always life. It's taken some prayer practice, actually, for me to realize that I do have new life in Christ. That the choices I make are because Christ changed a 10 year old and put a desire in my heart to obey. I explained to my DH the other day a lightbulb moment - the 10 commandments are for me!! Shocker?! Yeah, he wasn't too surprised either. But this is what I meant - that I've been a Christian so long, I just assumed that the reasons I don't have affairs, murder people, make idols and all that is because...wait for it...I'm so GOOD. It finally dawned on me that I'm just as likely as my neighbor to break my marriage vows, be violent towards someone I disagree with, and drop an orange in front of a Buddha - but for the grace of God. My goodness is not MY goodness, but God's goodness in me, compelling me to obey His commands.
Maybe some of you are new Christians and have LOTS of backstory to accompany your new life in Christ. Give thanks. We are all made new.
Families...
Before your family has a chance to do wrong by you today, thank God for the right they do. The love they do. Loving you is HARD. Loving you is also their joy. Give thanks. Have hangups? Strained relationships? We'll get to that, but right now, thank God for what you do have.
Friends...
Someone praying through this lectionary right now is probably thanking God for you - because you are a good friend to many. And likewise, we all have friends who are God's provision in our lives. Friends who share our grief and our joy. Friends who are the face of God to us in a needy hour, and the laugh of Christ when our bellies need a good shake.
Serve your purpose today...
Are you ready for today? Do you have a long to do list waiting? A few impossibles? Are you caring for a parent or child who needs more than you feel you can give? Are you facing a difficult work situation? Will you encounter a hurtful person? Or are you pumped? Do you have an agenda for your day? Are you diving into something you love? Either way, here's our reminder:
our strengths, our abilities
are all for serving God's purpose,
not ours.
There will be interruptions. There will be upheavals. There will be unexpected pleasure. God has an agenda for your day that supersedes your own. If you can latch on to that this morning - offering your best for whatever He has planned, and offering it in thanksgiving - notice we're thanking God here, not begging for help - you'll be better prepared for what comes your way. Right now, you're saying "God, what you've already given me is what I need."
Community...
Thank God for your community. You might not like your zipcode, but it's yours. You may dream of home ownership and be tired of living in rental territory. You may wish you were north of Montana, or east of California, or closer to the water, but your community is yours. God meets many of your needs through your community whether you realize it or not.
Opportunities to give...
This one gets me - rarely does a Tuesday go by when I don't see MANY opportunities to give. Thank God for them now, and then be on the alert. There's a neighborhood homeless guy who could use a sandwich, someone on the bus who needs a smile, a school mom who needs an unexpected carpool for her kids today, a friend who needs a phone call, a lonely neighbor who needs a kind word. A missionary in town raising funds to return to the field. There are opportunities all around.
Commit ourselves to serve...
So here's one of the catches to these intercessory prayers - one of the differences between my usual praying and these carefully written prayers. Usually, I pray for needs like online shopping: one of these, would love to have that, is this in stock? Submit and wait for the warehouse to get busy. Instead, these prayers begin our intercession by offering to take active part in the answer. Continually, these prayers acknowledge that Christ lives in us, and if Christ is the answer, if Christ has the power, if Christ is concerned, if Christ is able - well then, with Christ in us, doesn't that mean that we're part of the answer? Hmm...
Before we make requests, we commit to serve the very people we're praying for, acknowledging that if we're asking Christ to do something, the little Christ in us is going to want to respond.
Families, friends, neighbors...
We often remember to pray for family and friends, but neighbors???
Praying for my neighbors is wild. I don't know if anyone else is praying for them. Maybe some grandma somewhere. I see them leave the house for work, come home tired, kick back on the weekends, argue over the phone and skip the car repairs. I know their needs - why wouldn't I pray?
Refugees and homeless...
As urbanites, we see these people daily. Pray regularly. Serve them. They are right here among us. My little brother always picks up a bag of socks when he goes to Costco and keeps them in his trunk because he read that one thing homeless people are always in need of is clean socks. We know this because his wife was driving to work one morning and saw his car on the side of the road. She called to make sure he was ok, and he explained he was just giving a homeless guy some socks. She'd had no idea he'd been doing it for months.
Outcast and persecuted...
You know an outcast. Pray for them by name. Perhaps, after enough Tuesday morning prayers, that outcast will find himself at your table...
Want to receive prayer prompts for the persecuted church? Download this app from Voice of the Martyrs or visit this site.
Those from whom we're estranged...
Here's where your family may show up again. Or your coworkers. Or your kids. Or your spouse. Reconciliation begins with prayer. It may seem fruitless and futile, but this sowing of seeds will certainly cause something to bloom in your heart, if not their's also.
The church in Africa...
There is much that could be said on behalf of Africa. We could pray for her resources. Her politics. Her corruption. Her places of tyranny. Her army-recruited children. Her jungles. Her plains. Her coastlines. Her economy. But pray for her church. From her church comes the light, the peace, the hope that meets all other needs. God bless the church in Africa.
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