Bring as many with you as you can

I came away from a meeting on a recent Wednesday night and thought about how radically things have changed.  When I was a girl, churches all around town on Wednesday nights were packed, not with activities, but with prayer meetings.  It was a gathering to pray.  And while Aunt Marge with her heart condition was prayed for by these faithful ones -- and there were a lot of people who made it a top priority-- these faithful people prayed for things deeper and broader, unafraid to come before God, cry out to Him, and lay their burdens before the LORD.

They did not just seek the answers;
     they sought God Himself.

This week, I have had some hefty things to pray about.  And at first, I was reluctant to share with others -- friends, family, women in a Bible study I attend.  And in the course of my "keeping to myself," I realized that in asking others to pray, it increases God's glory, because it allows those pray-ers, not just to pray, but to see as first-hand witnesses of what God is doing.

It does not mean broadcasting my life to the world, but knowing those who truly pray and not just want to talk about it.

I came upon a study note in my Bible in the midst of Leviticus also this week.  It stated, "Especially in prayer may it be said that the power generated will be proportionately greater as more people pray.  Thus the more of God's people who work and pray together the more significant will be the results."

What I am going through, what happens with God's purposes, may not be about me after all.  But always and in all ways God works for His glory, and in eternal dimensions I cannot even fathom.

And that is not something I want to keep to myself at all.

God changes us all through prayer,
seeking Him with all our hearts
and seeing Him
                   before our very eyes.

It is not that we should have faith in prayer,
         but faith in God.

...and pray for one another,
         that you may be healed.
The prayer of a righteous man
   has great power in its effects.
         
                          James 5.16