Our Prayer Archive
December 2011: week 4
Pray that churches trained by us around the world would be renewed in welcoming the hungry stranger at their door. Pray that these churches and Chalmers staff would be startled afresh by the reality of Christmas and moved by the Spirit to greet Christ in the people we meet and serve.
December 2011: week 3
Excerpt from Karl Barth, “To Believe” from Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas
“Zechariah was mute because he did not believe the angel. We all are just like Zechariah in the sanctuary. Every one of us has a hidden side of our being that is, as it were, in touch with God. We are secretly in a close connection with the eternal truth and love, even if we ourselves are not aware of it…
We would not have the urge to exercise love and to become loving if it were not for the fact that within us is God’s voice, placed into our heart. In this way God spoke to Zechariah of something quite grand—a coming great decision and turning of all things, of the approaching better age at hand, of the Savior meant to become a helper for the people, and of his herald, whose father he himself would become…
Believing is not something as special and difficult or even unnatural as we often suppose. Believing means that what we listen to, we listen to as God’s speech. What moves us is not just our own concern, but precisely God’s concern…Imagine if everything were brought into this great and proper connection, if we were willing to suffer, be angry, love and rejoice with God, instead of always wanting to make everything our own private affair, as if we were alone.
Just imagine if we were to adapt everything that gratifies and moves us into the life and movement of God’s kingdom, so that we personally are, so to speak, taken out of play. Simply love! Simply hope! Simply rejoice! Simply strive! But in everything, do it no longer from yourself, but rather from God! Everything great that is hidden in you can indeed be great only in God.
Don’t you think we would learn to talk with one another if we would cease speaking about our own separate concerns; if the human would cease putting itself in front of the divine?
We must once and for all give up trying to be self-made individuals. Let us cease preaching by ourselves, doing good by ourselves, being sensible by ourselves, improving the world by ourselves. God wants us to do everything, certainly through us and with us and never without us; but our participation in what he does must naturally originate and grow out of his power, not ours…
So now here we stand, simultaneously deaf and mute like Zechariah. Ah yes, we only want to pretend to be next to him. In spite of his unbelief, he was still a herald of Advent, one who waited for God…When everything came to pass which he could not believe and could not express, then he was suddenly able to believe and speak. For God does not stand still when we come to a standstill, but precedes us with his deeds and only waits so that we can follow. And so we will accept—even with all that we cannot say, and with all that we have not yet heard—that we are also heralds of Advent. We will finally believe, and then we will also hear.”
Prayer Needs:
Pray that we at Chalmers would repent of:
- Working for economic development in our own strength
- Bearing the frustration of our work alone
- Attributing successes to ourselves
Pray that during this season we would remember the presence of God with us and in us and for a renewed sense of working from the Spirit of God instead of ourselves.
December 2011: week 2
Excerpt from Thomas Merton, Love and Living, taken from Advent and Christmas with Thomas Merton, p. 25
“The Nativity is the message not only of joy but of the joy: the GREAT JOY which all the people of the world have always expected without fully realizing what it was. It is the joy of eschatological fulfillment which we seek, in the depths of our hearts, from the moment that we are beings endowed with conscious life...
Now in the Nativity of Christ, the Great Joy is announced, in which all the ambiguities are swept aside and all men are confronted with the clear possibility of a decision that will not only help them to put together the pieces of lives wrecked in individual failure but will even make sense out of the lives of all men of all time.”
Prayer :
“Giver of peace, inspire all peoples with your meekness and humility of heart. Heal the strife and animosity that separate your sons and daughters and all the nations of the world. You who came to save us, endow us with loving intentions and loving actions. Let the peace of Bethlehem be with us always. Grant us the peace of justice, the peace of charity, and eternal peace with you. Amen.”
Prayer Needs:
Seventy percent of the world’s poor live in rural areas. Savings and Credit Associations (SCAs) are able to reach these populations, where many of the world’s “extreme poor” live, offering finance for emergencies and life cycle needs in addition to business investment. These populations are largely unreachable by traditional microfinance institutions. Please pray for North American Christians to rise up in support of this work through our ASSET program by forming Titus Teams.
