Eat Pray Love (...not the book, what we do)

Tonight the four of us got together for a house meeting, after numerous failed attempts in the weeks past. After going over some of the logistics of who cleans what when, we settled into the juicy stuff. Mainly, we renewed our vision and commitment to our household and neighborhood. We want to be more than just people who live together, and decided to re-commit to fostering our love and relationship for and with each other, by intentionally carving out time to spend together in fellowship. Specifically, praying and studying the Word after making dinner together once a week. Then we spent a very long time praying together about our neighbors & neighborhood, our friends, each other, and praising God for the wonderful ways he has provided for our community. We called down the kingdom to reign on Beekman Ave.

Lately God has been teaching me about the power of prayer. Crazy as it sounds, PEOPLE-- broken, fallible, messed up people-- are the instruments he chose for doing his work on earth. He actually makes our prayers influence history, influence his decisions. There are so many times when God was pissed off at the Israelites and wanted to give up on them, but Moses prayed for mercy and forgiveness, and God lead them through the desert. He "stood in the gap" for Israel.

I didn't actually know what that phrase meant until this weekend when I went to a workshop on intercessory prayer through Trinity Grace Church. It's from Ezekiel 20:33

30 "I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none. 31 So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them with my fiery anger, bringing down on their own heads all they have done, declares the Sovereign LORD."

Freaky, right? When God sees evil, his divine justice demands judgment. But we, through our prayers, can call upon his divine love and grace. It matters when we pray. When we pray we break bondage and free the Holy Spirit to come in and take over. We allow God to implement his will. There are so many things he wants to give us, tell us, show us! If only we should ask.

Another cool text, James 5:13-20:

13Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. 14Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
17Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. 19My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, 20remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

I especially like verse 16. Our prayers are powerful and effective, for we have all been made righteous by Jesus' blood. And so, I invite you to pray with us on the following things:

PRAISE! for lots of stuff, they shouldn't be hard to think of.
That each of us--me, Dewanda, Sara, and Jillian--would grow in deeper intimacy with God and with each other.
That we could begin to dream creatively for ways to bless those around us with God's love through the resources we have been given
For the security guards on our street
For the children of our neighborhood, that God would take away their boredom and apathy and give them dreams to dream, that they would graduate high school and go even farther, and above all that they would meet the Lord and be transformed by him
For the gang members in our neighborhood, the Bloods, that they would be able to find love and acceptance in the arms of the Father and turn away from the myth of redemptive violence
That God would provide employment for many, especially ex-cons who have recently been released from jail, and either see no other life than the one they had before, or have hopes for change but are faced with so many difficulties along the way
For families, that God would teach the men how to be fathers and the women how to be mothers, that children would begin to be trained up in righteousness from birth
For churches and organizations already here, pursuing God's vision for the South Bronx
That God would provide people with new eyes and new hope, to see beyond the death and decay all around to the new world that God is bringing about even as we speak
To break bonds of spiritual oppression and generational sin

Amen!