Oh no!
Much has been happening, and I hope to share soon.
Today, I thought I'd share a little nugget I mined out of some scripture a few days ago.
Our church has a nice little tradition: at the close of our Sunday evening service, we each draw a little slip of paper that has one of the names of each person attending. The name we choose is the name we pray for all week long. (Our head usher prepares these slips.)
Sometimes, we know what to pray for our name drawn that week. Perhaps they've mentioned a need during prayer request time, or shared something in class or while visiting. It's easy to pray for their need.
Sometimes, we don't know the best thing to pray for our person. Sure, we could pray that God makes our person happy, healthy, wealthy and wise and call it a day. Somehow, I think God wants us to pray in a more discerning way.
Mulling it over, I remembered in my study of 1st Peter seeing a prayer for our brothers and sisters to grow in grace and peace.
" ... May grace and peace be multiplied to you..." (1 Peter 1:2b ESV)
Following a rabbit trail, I did some research and discovered Paul, too, prayed grace and peace on the Romans,
Corinthians, Colossians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Thessalonians; BUT he prayed grace, peace and MERCY on Timothy and
Titus!
Why mercy for those two? Why, because they were in ministry! You need mercy when church people are your life's work. *smile
So, I ended up praying grace, peace and mercy for my
person. Because we all need mercy. In fact, I wished I could whisper into the ear of whoever is
praying for me to ask God to plop a double portion of all three on me.
It occurred to me with the law of sowing and reaping, I
could pray that for my person and I'd reap all those same things.
I wondered, was I praying as passionately for my person as the person who drew my name was praying for me?
And that's what was on my mind this morning. What is on YOUR mind? I'd love to know. Leave a comment and do tell!
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I'm sharing this post with the wonderful blogging communities at Arabah Joy's Grace & Truth and Crystal Twaddell's #FreshMarketFriday. These are two of my favorite places!
I enjoyed your post. Grace, mercy and peace are great things to pray for. I love how Paul's letters give us so many examples of how to pray.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea...for groups of any size. Prayer is so important and so powerful. Thanks for sharing such a wonderful way to minister. Bless you, friend.
ReplyDeleteI love that idea of drawing a name for a weekly prayer partner. Wondering about using it in my Sunday School class. Glad to hear that all is well with you.
ReplyDeleteWhat an awesome idea about drawing the name! I love that!
ReplyDeleteBlessings!
#FreshMarketFriday
Wow ... what a beautiful, sacred way to do community together. I'm applauding your church, Jerralea!
ReplyDeleteHi Jerralea! I really like the idea of praying for each other, we all need that don't we? And I think it's so generous of you to question whether you are praying as hard as the person who is praying for you. I bet the answer is 'yes', because you care so much.
ReplyDeleteI hope things in your life aren't too crazy. I'm busy too with visiting my daughter, and illness and a death in the family. It's been hopping that's for sure. But isn't that life?
Happy Valentine's Day to you and yours :)
Ceil