This post is by Dan.
As I watch our country, I am aware of the profound unrest that is facing our nation. We are very divided, and often over issues that we should naturally unify around. We have great difficulty seeing one another's perspectives and often immediately treat the other perspective as outrageously immoral, without considering the perspectives carefully. We attack and we lash out. A couple weeks ago, I was asked to participate in a corporate day of fasting and prayer for our country and actually the world regarding the coronavirus pandemic. I did not join the friend in that day, as the group calling for the fast was the Mormon church, and as it was Good Friday, I was celebrating a loosely restructured passover seder. However, I chose to fast and pray the next day. I have prayed quite a lot for this situation, but as I prayed I was struck by the need for much more intense prayer in the church. Our world is in desperate need of prayer, and America is in desperate need of prayer. Do we pray with militant passion and commitment, or do we forget that in the spiritual realm, prayer is the last component of the armor of God so famously listed in Ephesians 6:10-18? Colossians calls us to continue earnestly in prayer. This "earnestly" is a military term. It is as if to say that our dedication to prayer should be as a soldier's dedication to their duty in warfare or otherwise. Prayer should be practiced by us as our lives, spiritual lives, and the spiritual well being of other depend upon prayer.
So what of COVID - 19? Regardless of our opinion, we as believers should be united around this idea. We should pray over this situation in every appropriate way that we can think of, recognizing that God is in control and has never been surprised by this. He is working in it and through it, and it is our job to earnestly pray, seeking His face, and yes, ask for healing as well.
As I watch our country, I am aware of the profound unrest that is facing our nation. We are very divided, and often over issues that we should naturally unify around. We have great difficulty seeing one another's perspectives and often immediately treat the other perspective as outrageously immoral, without considering the perspectives carefully. We attack and we lash out. A couple weeks ago, I was asked to participate in a corporate day of fasting and prayer for our country and actually the world regarding the coronavirus pandemic. I did not join the friend in that day, as the group calling for the fast was the Mormon church, and as it was Good Friday, I was celebrating a loosely restructured passover seder. However, I chose to fast and pray the next day. I have prayed quite a lot for this situation, but as I prayed I was struck by the need for much more intense prayer in the church. Our world is in desperate need of prayer, and America is in desperate need of prayer. Do we pray with militant passion and commitment, or do we forget that in the spiritual realm, prayer is the last component of the armor of God so famously listed in Ephesians 6:10-18? Colossians calls us to continue earnestly in prayer. This "earnestly" is a military term. It is as if to say that our dedication to prayer should be as a soldier's dedication to their duty in warfare or otherwise. Prayer should be practiced by us as our lives, spiritual lives, and the spiritual well being of other depend upon prayer.
So what of COVID - 19? Regardless of our opinion, we as believers should be united around this idea. We should pray over this situation in every appropriate way that we can think of, recognizing that God is in control and has never been surprised by this. He is working in it and through it, and it is our job to earnestly pray, seeking His face, and yes, ask for healing as well.
