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Prayer Rooms this Week

• Today – 7:30am | 12 Bassett Street
• Wednesday – Noon | on Zoom

Scripture:

⁵ Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; ⁶ a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ ⁷ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ ⁸ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity^[e] he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

⁹ “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

¹¹ “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for^[f] a fish, will give him a snake instead? ¹² Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” – Luke 11:5-13

Reflection:

The disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray. In response, he gives them the Lord’s Prayer and then this parable. In this curious and provocative parable, Jesus encodes several key bits of information about the kind of intercessory prayer that moves the heart of God.

Here is the first – prayer that moves the heart of God is provoked by our awareness that we lack something we need. The man in the story is desperate. His is an honor shame culture which prizes hospitality and he is unable to feed the guest in his house. He needs bread…truly needs it…and he knows he doesn’t have it. Prayer that moves God is birthed out of this kind of desperation. It is part of the weather conditions in which the tornado of prayer is formed.

In order to pray, to truly pray – then – we need to learn how to get desperate. One way to do this is to fast – literally, to charge our spiritual/emotional selves with the physical pain of going without food. Another way is to allow God to break our hearts…by putting ourselves in physical or emotional proximity with some need. Another way to get desperate is to get in touch with our holy longings, perhaps those we’ve numbed in some way or another. Those parts of our hearts we’ve shut down or closed off. Another is love. Because even if we have no needs…there are surely those around us who do have needs. Jesus left the comfort of eternal communion with the Trinity in order to enter our world and enter into our need. One way we get desperate is by loving someone else and making their need our need. And this is what the man in the story does.

Prayer Prompts

• Come to Jesus with the following questions:
  • Lord, where do I lack? What do I need in my life, home this year that you want me to ask you for?
  • What are the holy longings in my heart, my life? For this year? Where have I numbed these?
  • Who are you inviting me to love and what do they need?
• Go before the Lord with others in mind, begin asking God to give them what they need and you don’t have.

Prayer Rooms this Week

• No Prayer Room Today due to snow and MLK Day.
• Tuesday – 7:30am | 12 Bassett Street
• Wednesday – Noon | on Zoom

2 Timothy 2:1-7

2 I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— ² for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. ³ This is good, and pleases God our Savior, ⁴ who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. ⁵ For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, ⁶ who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. ⁷ And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles.

A Prayer for our Nation on Innauguration Day.

O Lord our Governor, whose glory is in all the world: We commend this nation to your merciful care, that, being guided by your Providence, we may dwell secure in your peace. Grant to the President of the United States, the Governor of this State , and to all in authority, wisdom and strength to know and to do your will. Fill them with the love of truth and righteousness, and make them ever mindful of their calling to serve this people in your fear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen. – Book of Common Prayer

A Prayer written by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Most gracious and all wise God, before whose face the generations rise and fall; Thou in whom we live, and move, and have our being. We thank thee for all of thy good and gracious gifts, for life and for health; for food and for raiment; for the beauties of nature and human nature. We come before thee painfully aware of our inadequacies and shortcomings. We realize that we stand surrounded with the mountains of love and we deliberately dwell in the valley of hate. We stand amid the forces of truth and deliberately lie. We are forever offered the high road and yet we choose to travel the low road. For these sins O God forgive. Break the spell of that which blinds our minds. Purify our hearts that we may see thee. O God in these turbulent days when fear and doubt are mounting high give us broad visions, penetrating eyes, and power of endurance. Help us to work with renewed vigor for a warless world, for a better distribution of wealth and for a brother/sisterhood that transcends race or color. In the name and spirit of Jesus we pray. Amen.  

Pray

• For our nation, as the Spirit leads, for Christ’s Kingdom to come here as in Heaven.
• For wisdom and the fear of the Lord among our all nation’s leaders.
• For the legacy of Dr. King to be renewed in our day.
• For revival and all its fruit, to grace our nation in our time.

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 

– Matthew 6:5-7

Reflection

Jesus is calling us to the closet. There is something indispensable and irreplaceable that happens in the prayer closet…in the secret place that only God sees. The story of revival begins when men, women, and children rediscover the prayer closet…or find it for the first time. This year, God wants to use our prayers to release his Kingdom – but for this to happen…we need to find the closet. “No person is greater than their prayer life,” writes Leonard Ravenhill.

• Where is your prayer closet?
• When will you go there this year?
• Will you commit to spend time alone with God, in secret, asking your Father in heaven to bring his Kingdom to these places on earth as in heaven?

Jesus is calling us to the closet. He wants to meet us there in 2025. Will you answer the call?

Prayer Prompts:

• God, who are the people in your life on your heart this year?
• Who do you want me to pray for?
• Where do you want to move in my life, my family, my work, my school?
• How do you want me to pray?