A Call to Prayer
Entry posted by Restius ·
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As I stood holding my guitar yesterday following our Sunday morning worship service, our pastor stood up and started talking about how we as a nation (USA) really need to take time to pray for this election coming in a few weeks.
He continued, saying, that Daniel spent 21 (Daniel 10) days praying and fasting after a great revelation. Daniel fasted often in other parts of his book, in response to events going on within his country, albeit a foreign country. His statements had me thinking about praying and fasting, even before he asked our church to join him in fasting something of value to us up to the elections.
I remembered how Daniel wasn't the only one who fasted. We can read in the book of Esther, how the Jews in Susa (Esther 4) fasted for three days to give her wisdom. Nehemiah fasts after hearing about the status of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 1), Ezra fasts for safe passage back to Jerusalem (Ezra 8), and the entire city of Nineveh fasted after hearing Jonah's word (Jonah 3). There's plenty of other scriptures dealing with fasting that I won't flood the page with it.
So this is a simple request, I'm not looking for pledges, I'm not looking for political arguments or discussions, and this is not about which candidate should be in office.
Now what do you fast? Often people fast food, but it doesn't have to be food, fasting in this case, is giving up something that you do daily, and this can be from 5-10 minutes to a couple hours, whatever you feel comfortable doing to replace that time with prayer. For me, I'll be giving up my personal project time in the mornings before I go to work.
If you're willing to fast, I encourage you to find something over the next few weeks to fast and pray for our country. It's not about praying that a candidate in particular wins, throw all the politicians and opinions you know out of the equation.
This is praying that God will protect our country and help us to focus on the right direction, to break down the internal barriers in our country and provide resolve so that we can be united again. To give our leaders guidance on where we can improve, and knowledge on handling crisis when it rears it's ugly head. To see our country to lift up the broken, to encourage the weak, and to be a positive light to help change the world in which we live.
If you're not from the US, I'd still encourage you to join in prayer for our country, as we need much of it, but to also pray for your own countries, and the world as a whole, that we can make this world increasingly better for the next generation, and that God will continue to show our world leaders how to solve the problems that arise, and find the best solution for those involved now, and in the future.
Thank you,
Restius
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