Pray

            As I mentioned in my last post, the D.C. high school mission trip was filled with highs and lows.  One of the lows was a particular situation our youth minister had to deal with.  I wasn't in his ministry group, so I didn't know the full extent of the situation until the end of the trip.  But, about midway through the week I did know that something wasn't quite right.  Then, on Friday before my group left for our mission work, I was having a conversation with the youth minister.  At the end of the conversation, he looked me in the eye and said, “I know you don’t know everything that is going on, but pray, please.”  In the past, I've had people share prayer requests with me and I've been in situations where I have prayed with urgency about something, but I have never had someone ask me so insistently to pray with so few details.  I've known this youth minister for a very long time, and I've never heard that kind of urgency in his voice before.  So that whole day I prayed.  I prayed for him.  I prayed for the people I suspected were involved in the situation.  And I also asked the Holy Spirit to intercede for me because I didn't have the words or knowledge about the situation.  It was a really powerful experience for me to have someone ask me so directly to pray for them.  And it was really humbling to know that I didn't have all the information but that God would respond to my prayers anyways. 

            In fact, God knew everything about the situation, and He was working in it long before I knew anything about it.  His handprints were all over friendships that were formed that were a positive part of this situation.  He was making beautiful things out of the dust of a situation influenced by the choices of sinful humans.  And that’s what He does all of the time in all of our lives.  That’s why we need His grace.  Because there is the choice between sin and God’s way, and all of us, repeatedly, choose sin.  When we realize our mistakes, God is waiting there to offer us grace, mercy, love, peace, and healing.  We all need it, and He offers it to us no matter how many times or to what degree we mess up!  Isn't God amazing?!