The idea that prayer is nothing more than a conversation between ourselves and God is an understatement.  Prayer is the opening of a door that invites us into the presence and the power of God.  Once the door is open, God can choose to act upon our prayers in ways that are consistent with God’s will for our lives, or God can choose to refocus our lives on the power of prayer and God’s ability to change our circumstances.  Prayer, then, is not just the utterance of a lot of magical mumbo-jumbo words in which we evoke a powerful other-worldly presence to be at our beck and call.  Prayer is a manifestation of our relationship with God through which we are invited to express ourselves.  We pray because of our experience with the distresses of life.  Our rejoicing in songs of praise becomes a musical celebration of prayer to God.  It invites the community of the faithful to join in the healing ministry of prayer, thereby building upon the relationship qualities between us and God.  And prayer has the ability to work in the miraculous art of healing through touch and anointing.

         So, prayer is an instrument — a tool of the Spirit through which we are heard by God through which God chooses to respond to our requests.  It has already been proven that when we are sick, prayers have a mystical spiritual energy of its own to change the demeanor and results of the person being prayed for.  And while the source of this energy has yet to be realized in tangible ways — it can’t be bottled and sold in the marketplace — the results of it are a proven reality.  Prayer has a healing power for which the only substantive answer is God through which the Spirit of God works to bring about physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual healing to those for whom it is offered.

• How have you experienced prayer working in your life as a healing property of God?
• Why do you believe prayer is essential to your relationship with God and others?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, hear our prayers for one another as we sing songs of praise in our joy, find strength in our weakness, courage in our fear, patience in our suffering, and hope in our discouragement. Comfort us all by bringing healing to our dis-eases. Amen.

         Most people know of Rosa Parks as the black woman who refused to go to the back of the bus, and thus ignited the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, a boycott that became a key victory in the civil rights movement. While park's decision appears to be a spur of the moment act, it was anything but that.

         Parks had spent the previous 12 years helping lead the local NAACP chapter.  The summer before, she had attended a 10-day training session in Tennessee at a labor and civil rights organizing school.  For some time, she had been studying other bus boycotts, and she already had been arrested in one, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, two years earlier.

         For some people, staying prepared is a one time “getting-ready-session” where you get everything you need and just wait for the appropriate moment to spring into action.  But in reality, staying prepared is a process of engagement over and over again until the moment of ‘kairos’ (KY-ros) — the time when both time and opportunity collide in a split second of communion and the world shifts on its proverbial axis.  Such will be the occasion at the coming of our Christ.  It’s at that time those who have stayed ready will be invited to enter the wedding of the Lamb and feast at his heavenly banquet.  It’s prepared for those who have stayed ready.

• How important is staying ready to receive the Lamb to you and why?
• What measures are you taking to ensure that you are staying ready?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, grant that throughout my life I have adequately prepared and have stayed ready enough to be invited into Your wedding banquet.

         The one thing we can all agree on is that ‘time is relative’.  What one person considers a long time, depending on one’s experiences, that same period of time could be understood to be relatively short and vice versa.  The late Black comedian, Dick Gregory, once said, “I spent three days in Georgia one night.”  And if time is relative to us, where God is concerned, time is only important to God as it relates to God’s greater agenda — to allow everyone to come to repentance who will come.  The problem lies in our ability or inability to wait out God’s clock in order for us to receive the blessings God has in store for us.  We can patiently wait God out, or we can get ourselves in position to be adequately prepared to meet our God who comes like a thief at our door.  However, rather than place ourselves in a position to be adequately prepared, it’s better to stay prepared!  If we stay prepared, then we’ll be ready whenever the decision is made for Christ to return.  And yes, the waiting may be difficult.  However, staying prepared is better than being in a position where we’re getting prepared and could be found to be unprepared.

• What is our human preoccupation with time and how does that preoccupation make it so difficult for us to wait?
• What about the waiting makes it difficult to stay prepared?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Lord, let me not become so weary in my waiting that I’m caught unprepared for Your coming. Help me to stay prepared even though you come like a thief in the night.