Prayer points!
1 Thessalonians 5:17 ”Pray without ceasing.”
When we want certain
things desperately, why not pray desperately? That’s my question! We wait
desperately for a promotion, job, partner and what not; yet, we fail to
desperately pray because we are doubtful of the results! Don’t tell me ‘it’s
not like that, sister Bala.’ Read the
scriptures, fill your head with the knowledge of God and how He had listened to
the pleas of desperate people, how He had wonderfully delivered people and then
you would want to do likewise. Cease from shortcuts. Breaking 100
coconuts, burning 100 candles, writing prayer request 1 lakh times,
rolling beads, climbing the steps with an offering on the head, shaving your
hair would do no good in Christianity. These are pagan, futile ways!
Sincerely cry out to God without giving up!
As husband and wife,
we have a habit of writing down our prayer requests (big and small) and praying
together and also praying during our personal prayer. We had to arrange a
three days training camp in Hyderabad which required lot of arrangements; we
were conducting this camp for the first time in Hyderabad , this camp was
earlier conducted in Chennai, where we had a big team to help us, now,
right from printing pamphlets, we had to do things from scratch. To start
with, we prepared a list of prayer points! Are you listening? What
do you do when you are arranging for a wedding, first thing people do is prepare
a guest list, menu list, jewelry list, dress list, friend list and what not –
we have failed to prepare a ‘prayer list’; which is why some things end in
fiasco! We have this habit of writing down our needs as prayer points and
pray through every day, the answered ones are ticked with red pen and we
persistently pray for the rest. During our several years of ministry, we
had not knocked the doors of the bank, friends and financiers but we had learnt
the art of knocking the doors of heaven through prayer points! Are you
listening?
Very
meticulously about several months ahead, we started praying for the camp which
is called ‘Abide-in-Christ’ camp where we train soldiers for Christ.
Right from the pulpit decoration, to the food caterers, boarding, favorable
climate – everything was on the list; there was one point squeezed in between
and that was ‘cameraman’. We had been praying for several years and God
had finally given us a wonderful, professional camera for our ministry but now
in the new city we were not able to find an operator, since my husband would be
preoccupied with other important things, we needed someone solely for camera
operation. Shooting the sermons were very important hence we were praying
for that point everyday – did you hear me say ‘everyday?’ Until the very last
day we were not able to find one, on the first day of the meeting, a team of
youngsters had come from Chennai to attend the meeting and one young man came hesitatingly to
my husband while my husband was busy getting the mikes ready for the worship
(this was happening on day one before the first worship) and asked, ‘who is
operating the camera, I am a professional and I operate the camera in a church
in Chennai which is one of the biggest church in Asia with 30,000
members.’ My husband told him, ‘take position, and go ahead with the
job!’
Laziness crashes and slumps growth! Relaxing
makes little sense as long as more remains to be accomplished! Arise! Roll up
your sleeves for some quality prayer and serious talk with God!
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