“Prayer is one vehicle through which we participate in what God is doing and wants to do in our world…God has sovereignly willed to be influenced by the prayers of his people.”
In this chapter the author continues the topic of praying that God’s will be done and applies it to three more significant categories.
The first is prayer for one’s church. He cautions his readers that God is not usually in the business of maintaining the status quo. Praying for God’s will to be done in our church may lead to change and may lead us out of our present comfort zone. In particular, he encourages his readers to pray for empowerment and protection for leadership and spiritual renewal for the congregation.
Next Beltz applies this prayer principle to prayer for one’s nation. He shares that it is his practice to prayer for God’s influence and intervention in the lives of national leaders. He also prays that God would heal the nation and bring spiritual renewal. Specific national issues that God brings to his attention are also matters of prayer.
Praying for the world is the last significant category about which the author prays for God’s will to be done. Anticipating that his readers might easily become overwhelmed with the breadth of things that could be prayed about, he urges that one select a series of global issues and peoples upon which to focus prayer.
From my perspective Beltz is right on to anticipate the feeling of being overwhelmed by all the issues one could pray about. Focusing on those church, national and global issues that are top of mind is more likely to lead to growith in our prayer life then trying to cover all the bases we could possibly think of.
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