Pray For Rescue

I have been praying for my ex-husband and sons’ dad for years, but have recently been praying for his rescue. He became homeless this past week, which is tough. We couldn’t bring him home with us, so we paid to get him to Wayside Mission. They were overfilled , but referred him to the generosity of the Salvation Army ( a bed, dinner and breakfast each day ). He has also begun to access supports through St John Center with paperwork to try to access services to get off the street and back into a safe place. We are praying as he is out walking the streets of downtown Louisville most days. Still, he and we have hope that this will just be a chapter in his life… not the end of his story. 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

Prayer seems like such a simple thing to most of us that we sometimes don’t truly recognize the power that it has. 1 John 5:14-15 says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.”  Matthew 17:20 also tells us: “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Prayer is a powerful tool at our disposable that we don’t fully realize many times.  Scripture says you actually don't need great faith to do impossible and amazing things through God; you only need small faith that is the size of a mustard seed. That small faith can move mountains! Jeremiah 29:12-13 says, “Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”  So, when things seem impossible or a situation feels hopeless, what is your natural inclination to do? Do you go to your Heavenly Father in prayer, or do you complain to others about how things are going? The ability to go to the Creator of the universe is a gift that we so often undervalue or overlook because we can easily get caught up in what we perceive as possible. But the way we see things is so different than what God sees from his perspective. Prayer can accomplish the impossible because we serve a Father that specializes in doing things that we can’t even fathom.  Reflection/Discussion Question: When have you experienced God do something that you never expected?

James 5:16 reads, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” For some of us, we have wandered away from our Father and need to come back home to him. Maybe your thoughts haven't been aimed at him. Maybe your life hasn’t been directed towards him. But the good news is that you just have an opportunity to repent. Repentance is one of the hardest things for us to do sometimes, but one of the most necessary. We can get stuck in seasons of life where our faith has been half-hearted or following Jesus feels like a really difficult task. Sometimes it simply begins by praying that God would stir up a heart of repentance in every person, including in our own life. We have to be willing to walk away from what we've been pursuing besides Jesus and come home to him. Repentance is such a powerful thing to witness when people just confess where they have been and what they’ve been a part of, but decide they no longer want to continue living that way. Instead, they want to trust God and return to the Father.  No matter where you find yourself today, remember that you have a Father that longs for every one of his children to come to Him. He longs for them to know him intimately. He longs for them to make that turn, to leave their life of sin, to leave their life of just chasing after their own things, and to come home to you. Reflection/Discussion Question: What do you need to repent of today?

We want to pray that God would give us a spirit of reconciliation. We long to see God work so that marriages, friendships, and other relationships would be restored. As Christ-followers, we are to be the ones who carry peace in every room we enter. God is the only one who can heal and break down the walls that divide us in our relationships.  Sometimes, peace and reconciliation feel impossible in our current society and world. But we serve a God that specializes in the impossible when his people pray. Recall the story of Peter in jail in Acts 12. “So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him. The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. ‘Quick, get up!’ he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.” We don’t always understand how God accomplishes his plans, but we know he always does - even in the most unlikely circumstances.   Through prayer, we ask that our Heavenly Father brings reconciliation to his saints and to his Church. As believers, we all desire that God would give us a peacemaking spirit that knows how to love and knows how to reach out to others. Through God’s work in us, we are able to really grow as a community of reconcilers, which only happens when we take steps with the people around us to be reconciled. Reflection/Discussion Question: Who in your life do you need to reconcile with?