When Katie Couric of “60 Minutes” interviewed Captain Chesley Sullenberger, who last month guided U.S. Airways Flight 1549 safely into the Hudson River, among the questions she asked him was this: “Did you at any point pray?” He replied, “I would imagine somebody in back was taking care of that for me while I was flying the airplane.” click here for the story.
If you are an intercessor, that is perhaps the best validation you’ve ever heard. And it’s a timely comment considering that on February 25 Metro Church will join other churches in our city, and along with congregations around the nation, will begin the annual 40 days of prayer for our respective cities.
How do you pray for your city? It’s daunting, and that’s why WayMakers, an Austin, Texas-based ministry, publishes a guide that walks us through the process. The guide is a daily devotional that includes daily scriptures and prayers that are jumping off points for that day’s prayer focus. For example, here’s the prayer for March 20, “Seeking God to work with his people to break the bonds of injustice”:
“Change the economic structures of our land to reflect your kingdom. Expose the bonds of wickedness that are within our reach. Show us ways that our own financial decisions may keep others trapped in cycles of injustice. Give us ways to free others from oppression. Bring the dawn of a new day of abundance for all in our land.”
Timely, isn’t it? After each reading, you follow the prayer prompts but can also allow the Holy Spirit to lead you into a tangent that will be your part of complete prayer diagram for that day. At the end of the 40 days, you feel a sense of completeness, that indeed the city has been fully enveloped in prayer. You can pick up a prayer guide on Sunday.
Across our city, people are passengers in lifestyles serving as the vehicles of their destruction. Do you have their backs?
“I have posted watchmen or your walls, O Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.” Isaiah 62: 6-7.
(to buy a prayer guide as pictured above, you can purchase them on Sundays at our church, or here)
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