National Day of Prayer

All over this nation today, people gathered to pray for this nation, our government, its leaders, our families, schools, churches, and each other. As usual, a few fellow teachers and I took off the noon hour to gather in downtown Winston-Salem with several other prayer warriors. Unfortunately, there are people in Winston-Salem, people in North Carolina, people in the United States, the world who don't know or don't care about the Gospel. Standing downtown today, in the middle of the busy crowd, made me anxious. I wanted to be there, but I also wanted to be in the middle of Botswana, or China, India, or Peru, even to lost people in my hometown. I believe prayer is so vitally important, please don't misunderstand me, but Jesus tells us to go and make disciples of all nations. Praying for those in China, praying for those in Africa, that is great. But, Jesus says to go. It's more than just praying. It's witnessing. It's testifying. It's going to the ends of the Earth for His Kingdom's sake. My mind was just racing with those thoughts today. The National Day of Prayer is an amazing day, but it's just one of 365 days in the year. What are we doing to come together for His glory the rest of the time?

I've seen too many Christians who need a wake-up call. I know of some who prayed for our nation's leaders today, only to more than likely say horrible comments about them tomorrow. It's not about us. It's not about whether we get what we want out of life. When we pray for government leaders, we should pray for them regardless of our own opinions.

When we pray for our laws in this country, we can't only pray for the laws that we think are correct and just. We have to pray for God's reign to fall upon the laws we might not agree with, that those lawmakers create those laws with Jesus in mind. We can do this without arguing. We can do this without judgment ourselves.

When we pray for our schools, churches, families, and media, we can pray for God's mercy to shower over them, but we must let God be in control. We can do this without oppressing anyone's opinion or personal choice. I've seen too many Christians misuse our Gospel these days. I don't want to see us silent, but I pray that we can put our personal opinions aside to allow God to work His glory in the lost of this nation and world. Jesus' gatherings were with liars, with thieves, with lepers, with the lost and helpless. If we are striving to be more like Jesus, why aren't more of us hanging around with the same crowd that He did? I'm not advocating being LIKE those people, but those are certainly people we need to be reaching. He can use us for His purposes, but we can't get in the way of His message. I hope everyone was able to gather somewhere today. If not, I just pray that you felt Him close today. God bless.