Pray without ceasing

The word ‘prayer’ is written 132 times in the Bible . Something there says it’s just a smidge important right ? 

Recently I heard about a revival project in Nashville where 400 churches came together to pray for their city . It was tireless work for these pastors but oh how it paid off ! They actually went to the phone book and got names and address of the entire city . The list was divided into groups of 15 and these pastors gave each member of their church 15 names . Each Church member was then asked to pray for these 15 strangers over the course of one month . They could send these strangers anonymous letters of encouragement , prayers , or just do so in the quiet of their own home . Can you imagine the power in a city that comes from this? As one of the main pastors there mentioned in a podcast I listened to last week , 80% of their city had probably never been prayed for by name before this .

This is a task that I know I personally couldn’t wrap my head around but the idea has stuck with me daily since hearing about this . As a child I grew up thinking prayer only happened while kneeling in a pew on Sunday or the really big prayers happened when you paid a dollar to light a candle to pray extra  . It was life changing as an adult and new believer when I discovered that Christ was in fact with us and we are able to pray daily , hour by hour minute by minute . To many life-long Christians that may sound silly but it really changed my life ! I am not one that takes “ I will pray for you” lightly because of this and thankfully many women the Lord has placed around me feel the same. 

Prayer can be so simple that we often skip over it’s importantance , unless of course a tragedy hits . If it’s mentioned 132 times in the Bible It is probably something we should always be working on and working on improving personally right ? I know I want to! This story just totally inspired me and I wanted to share it with you friends .

How can we pray for our city ? We often have a list of those closest to us from immediate family , to extended , and close friends . Maybe we have a random stranger or two on our note for prayers but how much further do we go than that ? How can we pray for those personally that aren’t connected to us or the big C Church or our lives in any way? How can lives and cities be transformed by the power of prayer ? Maybe we start small. Take 5 Facebook friends you never interact with and pray for them for a month? Invest in their name and their life even if you don’t know anything about it ( besides the vaguebooking we see now and then ) I haven’t completed this idea but I know that my people are good at this . Send me your ideas ! Comment on here . How can we begin to pray for our own brothers and sisters who were created in the exact same image as ourselves ( YES that means every human on earth .) 

I’m super inspired by Nashville and the revival they have begun simply by directing their prayers intentionally . Let’s pray without ceasing ... Be anxious for nothing but in everything through prayer and petition ... rejoice always and PRAY continuously . 

xoxo

B