Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual
and the community must enter every day.
(Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
and the community must enter every day.
(Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
Before You Ask
And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:7-8)
Many people think their prayers won’t work if they don’t utter them clearly enough, or fail to explain to God exactly what they mean, or don’t speak loudly enough to him with sufficient earnestness. But when this happens, prayer becomes so exaggerated that our Savior even forbids it.
Obviously Jesus does not want to discourage us from praying. His point is that when we pray we must have a sense of proportion. Once we have prayed, we must be quiet. We need to be like the farmer who has sown his seed. Help will come only when you are quiet in faith. Also in your sickness or with other needs, learn to be still and look to the Kingdom of God.
We can share our needs with the Father in a few words, without making a fuss, and rest assured that God already knows what we need and what he will do to help us. We don’t have to explain our requests in great detail to God, or try and make quite sure that he knows our needs. God knows about even the smallest matters and takes them straight into his heart. We can turn to him by glancing Heavenward, with no words at all. We can do this even when we pray about something concrete and tangible, or about something that specifically troubles us. We may realize that what we thought we needed is actually not necessary and that we can find a way right in the midst of how things are now.
This doesn’t mean that we just let things happen – as if everything will come of its own accord without our longing for it. Nor should we just cast a brief and hurried request at God’s feet. When this happens, we too easily lose sight of God, assume that everything comes to us without his help, and we forget to thank him. Then we cease to have a believing heart and are consequently not true children of God.
Jesus said, “Before you ask him.” Therefore we do need to make our requests known to him, otherwise many things will not be given that could have been given. It never displeases God when we come to him with our heartfelt requests. A real child asks for everything, knowing God has an ear for him. We should bring all our burdens and needs to him, for at the very least this helps to make us ever more aware that in all things God is the giver.
God always has our interest in mind. He carries our various needs with fatherly concern, eagerly waiting for us to come to him. He has not forgotten us. And when we feel tempted to think so, then all the more we should remember that he knows it all and cares for us. In fact, he knows much more about us and our needs than we do. Simple, childlike prayer is enough to move his heart, give you something out of the fullness of his compassion, and save you from all sorts of fear and trouble.
(Johann Christoph Blumhardt)
(The God Who Heals, Words of Hope for a Time of Sickness)
Request a prayer and pray for others
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You may add your prayer request to this prayer wall using the form below. Once your prayer request is received, I will share it according to your instructions. Feel free to submit as many prayer requests as you like!
Julia
If you were not risen,
Lord Christ, to whom would we go
to discover a radiance
of the face of God?
If you were not risen,
we would not be together seeking your communion.
We would not find in your presence forgiveness,
wellspring of a new beginning.
If you were not risen,
where would we draw the energy for following you
right to the end of our existence,
for choosing you again and anew?
(Brother Roger of Taize)
Received: April 30, 2018
Julia
Lord teach us to love as You love us.
Help us to see across the divisions that we impose, to resist the urge to create ‘comfortable’ distances that make it easy to label the ‘other’ as strange. Help us to think outside our usual way of doing things or having a ‘default’ reaction or action. Help us to find new ways, which may well turn out to be better than what is our ‘accepted practice’.
We give thanks for the courageous and restrained example of the Canadian policeman who peacefully detained the Toronto car mass murderer.
We give thanks for the Hindu priest in Hyderabad, India, who made headlines for carrying a Dalit (formerly known as untouchable) man on his shoulders into the temple’s inner sanctum, to show people that everyone is equal in the eyes of God.
We give thanks for the thousands in Germany – including people from the far right to the far left as well as the Turkish communities – who rallied in support of the Jewish community after an anti-Semitic attack earlier in the week.
We give thanks for the new National Memorial for Peace and Justice that opened this week in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S., commemorating the black victims of the more than 4,000 “racial terror” lynchings in the U.S. between 1877 and 1950, bringing this horrendous and rarely acknowledged legacy into public view and opening the way for conversation and reconciliation.
We remember all who grieve and mourn and fear at this time.
(World In Prayer)
Received: April 28, 2018
Julia
The Golden Arrow Prayer
May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable,
most incomprehensible and ineffable Name of God
be forever praised, blessed, loved, adored
and glorified in Heaven, on Earth,
and under the earth,
by all the creatures of God,
and by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ,
in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Amen.
Received: April 28, 2018
Julia
We thank God for giving the United States a pro-life Secretary of State. Mike Pompeo has a long record of supporting pro-life legislation, and his appointment may go far to stabilizie this country from the horror of the holocaust that is abortion. Amen.
Received: April 27, 2018
Julia
We pray for the peace agreement between North Korea and South Korea: We thank you, Heavenly Father, for the work of President Trump that has brought about a cessation of hostility between these two countries. May the people of North Korea and South Korea continue to walk the path of peace. Amen.
Received: April 27, 2018
Julia
Genocide is occurring in Myanmar. Over 688,000 Rohingya have been forced from their homes and have fled to Bangladesh. We pray for the long-term wellbeing of these displaced families with a proving of food, medicine, and shelter. Amen. (Partners Relief & Development)
Received: April 27, 2018
Julia
We pray for the Jewish community in Berlin: for a complete cessation of dangerous attacks, for safety in expressing who they are by the wearing of a kipa, and for a restored flourishing of Jewish life in Europe. Amen.
Received: April 27, 2018
Julia
We pray for the little children on the streets of Uganda: for their future, their protection, and their need to experience love just like other children. Heavenly Father, help them to survive. Amen. (Ba Nga Afayo Initiative Uganda)
Received: April 27, 2018
Julia
A Prayer for the Feast Day of Christina Rossetti
O God, whom Heaven cannot hold, who didst inspire Christina Rossetti to express the mystery of the Incarnation through her poems: Help us to follow her example in giving our hearts to Christ, who is love; and who is alive and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
Received: April 27, 2018
Edmund Krzeminski
[We read] In the King James Bible, Ezekiel 22:30: "And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none."
O God, please help us and teach us to build a wall [of prayer] around the USA, Canada and Poland. Are you ready to stand in the gap, where God is the Helper and Teacher?
Please pray that Poland, the USA/Canada would overcome for: (The Acts 26.18).
* Poland, pray for freedom from dead religion to saving faith of Jesus Christ as the Saviour and the Lord by faith only,
* the Church in the USA, Canada – Pray for repentance and cleansing of the church--Matt. 3.12 "Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
* my family:
1. Stir up the hearts of my family for ministry for me, my wife Dorothy, our daughter Ann, and our sons Peter and Daniel - "..but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" Joshua 24.15
2. Pray for God's will, wisdom, discernment, revelation and recognition for me and my family; I ask God for great wisdom in school for Daniel, and for Edmund’s work situation, for Dorothy and Peter (also God's direction for his life) and Ann (God's protection over the company where she works),
3. God's order in my work. I ask God for great wisdom at my work. Blessings and the knowledge of Jesus Christ for my bosses. Thank God for the continuation of my work.
Edmund & Dorothy Krzeminski