Skip to main content

The National Day of Prayer...

...is today. And I am excited. Why?

Because I have a rare opportunity to be in prayer with literally millions of other believers at the same time....and know it. How amazing it is to know that on this very day, people all over this country--every race, both genders, every walk of life-- are making special time to pray to Almighty God in thanksgiving for His mercies and blessings and in intercession on behalf of our families, churches, nation and its leaders. It makes my heart swell to know that I am a part of this great multitude.

Now for the inconvenient part: last night the Holy Spirit challenged me to pray for a certain individual (alright...individualS) that I don't particularly care for. I'm ashamed to admit it, but there are people that I just don't like, try as I might. Usually, I dislike a person for just cause; the person wronged me in some way and I am hurt. Yet despite that and to my chagrin, the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit challenged to me to pray with sincerity for the person(s) that have hurt me, the ones I like the least...

I am less excited about this part. Nevertheless, I must submit to the leading of the Lord (after all isn't that what Jesus commanded us to do in Matt 5:44*). So I started today and intend to make it a point to call their names (one in particular) before the Lord every time I approach the throne. I can already feel my heart softening towards them.

Now I ask you, is the Lord challenging you to take your prayer life to the next level?

*But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ride or Die

I love this phrase. There are quite a few subtle variations on the meaning, but it is an urban colloquialism that means loyalty, no matter what. I thank God that I have been blessed with a few people that have that kind of loyalty to me and I to them. It's a rich blessing that have true friends. They are with me and in my corner no matter what (or "regardless of what" as one of them would say). This week we had Vacation Bible School at my church and I was privileged to be a teacher. The first lesson was taken from Daniel chapter three. The very well known story of the three Hebrew boys: Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego. It is a wonderful story of faith, but something jumped out at me so profoundly that it almost knocked me over. We always focus on the deliverance. But the Hebrew boys did not. Their focus was on God and Him alone. They were ride or die for the Lord. Literally. If you read the story, they never once pray for deliverance. They talk about God's a...

When God Says No...

Two things are certain: God is able and God is sovereign. The problem is that His ability and His sovereignty don't always work together. Sometimes His sovereignty overrules His ability and though He can do something on our behalf, He doesn't because it is not His will. That is the hardest thing to accept for us as Christians. Most times, our faith wanes not because we don't think He is able, but because we assume that just because He is able, He is also willing. Unfortunately, in a lot of instances His sovereign will causes Him to refuse to do something that He was more than able to do. If we look at Paul, we see a great example of that. Paul had a "thorn in the flesh" and besought the Lord three times to remove it. God never did. Not because He wasn't able, but because there was a purpose to Paul's thorn in the flesh that would benefit Paul more than the removal of the "thorn" (see 2 Cor. 12:7-10). This is something that I am li...

Walk Away

Hello out there! I've been a bit on the silent side for the past few weeks...the truth is, I was having a little trouble hearing from the Lord. It's amazing how clearly you can hear Him once you take a moment to really listen. Now....on to the blog. The title of this blog comes from one of my FAVORITE songs by one of my FAVORITE groups called the  Indigo Girls . I don't agree with a lot of their beliefs, but I find it interesting how I can find spiritual truths in their lyrics (and to their credit, they do make a surprising number of Biblical allusions). Anyway, back to my point. "Walk Away" is a song from the POV of a person who is leaving a relationship a bit reluctantly. The first lines of the song are "We used to walk in each other's arms, we were one-on-one, that's what you said." The song goes on without a refrain/chorus, just a repeated line: "Walk away." For me the climax of the song is when the singer declares that she is a...