In such a short sentence, Paul has covered the wide spectrum of Christian life. He takes us from the joy-filled heights of hope the the painful patience of hardship. Through it all there is a call for the Christian to remain connected to God in prayer. There is difficulty in praying during both extremes. If things are going well it is all too easy to assume that we are in charge and we can forget about God for a while. When we are miserable it is usually our relationship with God that will suffer. We can look to other things besides God to ease our sufferings. Paul reminds us that through it all we should remain faithful to pray. We need to remember God when our children are doing well, when the checkbook is tilting in our favor, when the SUV is full of gas on the way to the vacation destination, when our ducks are all in a row. We also need to remember God in sickness and disappointment, when friends don't understand, when nobody seem to care, when debt is deep and time is short. Through it all God wants us to be faithful to pray. Prayer is like breathing, it's something we always need to do regardless of the situations and life circumstances we are in. We can always share our joys and frustrations with God and that's the important thing- that we live with God.
DAY 15
"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse." Romans 12:14
There is a private and secret element to praying for those who do us harm. There is also a public aspect to blessing people who are troubling us. For today let's stick to the secret prayer of blessing for those who curse us. Not one can naturally do this. It sounds like an impossible task. We are told by Paul to refrain from wishing harm upon those who curse us and then we are told to desire what is good fro them by praying a blessing on them! If you think about it, desiring what is good fro those who stand opposed to you is exactly what God does with us every day. We can be like God and also help make the gospel a reality in the world by praying and blessing others. The more difficult the person is to pray for the more you are being like God in praying a blessing on them. We've got to ask God for His heart when we are doing this, we can't love people without His help. Secrecy is crucial to this kind of prayer. Just you and God getting together to bless someone that He has created and who could probably use it. It sure is hard to do and it makes us completely dependent on God's power to do something like this. Pick someone, maybe even someone from your church and ask God to bless him or her. Start off with small, generic prayers and work your way to more specific requests and prayers for that person.
*Taken from "Western New York Prayer Initiative"
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