Prayer
The mother was remembering the time when her toddler had learned to say the blessing. Company had come, the little girl was seated in her highchair, and they asked if she would like to do the honors. She bowed her head, closed her eyes, and said, “God is great, God is good. Let us thank Him for this food. If he hollers, let him go. Eenie, meenie, miney, moe.”
Sometimes we settle down to pray and it doesn’t come out quite right. Maybe we don’t even know where to begin. You know how it goes—you’re in the middle of something, or you’re asleep and the next thing you know, there’s a name on your mind. I think we’ve all been there.
If I’m sleeping and wake up with a name on my mind, it often takes a few minutes to get past the reminiscing of times with that person or the last conversation before I think, “OH, DUH! PRAY!” There are times when we know for sure that God puts them on our minds just for that reason. Other times, we may not know WHY, but it’s definitely there.
When it comes to praying for our international workers, it’s natural to want to wait for the next prayer letter or the next mention of them at church. THEN we’ll know how to pray, right?
How many times have we heard a missionary talk about a time when they were in a seemingly hopeless situation and something miraculous happened? How often have we heard them say that they KNEW someone was praying for them? We’ve even heard stories of people asking them what happened to them on a particular date, only to find out that the prayers of the one asking were critical to the one on the blessing end?
What happens when we hear on the news of something that happens across the globe where we know there are Alliance workers? Do we stop and pray for them?
But other times, we sit around with our family or friends, even church friends, and don’t know how to begin to pray. There’s always the list of things in the epistles that Paul and others prayed for people, or the things Jesus prayed for us in John 17. You know, strength, that they would grow in the knowledge of Him, that they would be united, that they would be able to endure…. This is a cruel world we live in and none of us is immune to it.
We’re the Alliance Women, at one time called “WOOMPF” or WMPF—Women’s Missionary Prayer Fellowship. Prayer was part of our beginning, it used to be part of our name, and is just as vital to kingdom work as going is. We’re actually talking to the One who makes things happen! I’m challenging ALL of us, me included, to take this business of prayer more seriously. It’s been on my mind a lot and it prompted me to list practical things to pray for our IWs. You can find it HERE and it’s also on the website under RESOURCES It’s not an end-all and you are certainly welcome to add to it.
The important thing is that we PRAY. We pray as the body of Christ, we pray as the local church, we pray as a group, we pray individually. This is kingdom work, after all, and we are called to be a part of it. May we do this to the glory of Him who has called us!
“The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” James 5:16b NASB
