Last night students gathered together at midnight to kick off a 24 hour prayer chain. Tuesday at our weekly meeting we focused on our partnership and God's heart for the nations. Its so easy to get bogged down in our world that we forget what God is doing else where. Tuesday was eye opening for many to see the bigger picture; God is at work in the unimaginable places and inviting us to be a part. We had been planning this prayer chain to follow our partnership for a while and thought it would be great to pray for the world. So we did...
We planned to meet at Denny Chimes (on the quad for those of you not from around here) and pray on campus. The rain kept falling. We sent out messages and headed to Capstone, where we have our weekly meeting. Normally when its raining, we see a lower attendance so I was wondering if that would affect people coming. Around 30 students showed up. I was blown away. We gathered together, worshipped Jesus and prayed together. Elaine and I led the night.
"Shout joyfully to God, all the earth; Sing the glory of His name; make His praise glorious. All the earth will worship You, and will sing praises to You; They will sing praise to Your name. come and see the works of God. Who is awesome in His deeds toward the sons of men. Bless our God, O people, And sound His praise abroad. Come and hear all you fear God, and I will tell of what He has done for my soul. Blessed be God, Who has not turned away my prayer nor his lovingkindness from me." Parts of Psalm 66 I read
"Look at the nations! Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! Because I am doing something in your days-You would not believe if you were told" Habakkuk 1:5 Elaine read
We prayed about things we were thankful for that God has done in the nations already and things that are on our heart. The beauty of the night to me was hearing the passion on different people's hearts for different things. No person had the same deep passion. Sure, we prayed for some of the same things, but God had given each person something that is deeply engrained to them that they are trusting God with. These students are not content with how things are and are committed to crying to the Father, and that is encouraging. Last night was only one hour but it was one of the best hours I've had here at Alabama. To have students unified in prayer is like nothing else.
So today we continue to the rest of the 24 hours. All through the night and morning students have been pleading with God on behalf of the nations. It brings chills throughout me.
I woke up this morning and came to sit at Panera to work on some development stuff. I got to thinking about what I do. It might go without saying that I love my job. I mean, it hardly feel like a job. Its not hard to get out of bed in the morning because there is nothing that fires me up more than what I'm doing right now. I just love it. Then I got to just thinking about work, the nature of it, and all it encompasses. One of the first things we see about God from the Bible is He is a worker. He is the creator and He worked. He then created us in His own image and as a result, we are to work. The unfortunate thing all too often is so many people hate what they do. They dread work and long for the weekend. Our work brings glory to God the Father.
Since we are created to work, it can also be said that we are all called into the work we do. It bothers me that only "missionaries" are the ones thought of as being called into their work. But if we are made to work, isn't it true that God calls and leads us to that? If we have a calling on our work, then we too have a Caller. A Caller who is most glorified when we are most satisfied as Piper says. If we are not satisfied in our work, He rarely is glorified, for I would suggest we do a poor job, have a bad attitude, and most of all, have missed our real calling. A calling to work in a job God has created us for!!
So I sit with great thanksgiving. I'm thankful God has made it clear this is my calling. My prayer is that more people would find the work God has called them into. I'm not suggesting everyone is to be involved in such things as midnight prayer with college students, some maybe. It might be opening a flower shop, being an accountant, pilot, who knows?!?! Thats my prayer today.
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