Jump Off Again!

Prayer is the only power which the powerless posses.-John Stott

Well, I'm restarting this blog in hopes of getting back into journaling and sharing this crazy ride I call life with others. So I am just going to jump right in.

I've been mulling over the sermon I heard this past Sunday. One of the readings is my favorite gospel passage in Jn. 9 where Jesus tells the crowds that a blind man was not born blind because of someone's sin, but so that the glory of God could be revealed in that moment in his healing. The other reading was from Acts 12 about the miraculous rescue of Peter from prison. The sermon was the final in a series that was designed to help us as a church prepare for the outcome of our lawsuit with the Episcopal Church, whatever it may be.

The main points I got from it is that we do not know what God will do, in our lawsuit or in our lives, but we do know that it will be for our good (Rom 8:38), and we also know that we are not to be passive about it. It is a battle and if we are not active we can't be fighting. I don't mean that it is a battle for the church property, because it's not really that. Instead it is a spiritual battle for souls and for the message of Christ.

We need to be praying. The young church in Jerusalem was getting the stuffing beat out of them. James was beheaded, (Think about how John, of all people must have felt!), Peter was in prison, and Herod wanted blood. Yet, they met in a room and prayed earnestly for Peter (v.5). Funnily enough they didn't believe that their prayers had been answered at first (v.15), but still even with little faith, their prayers had been answered. In the end Herod was dead, Peter was free, and the Gospel was spreading. Amazing!

So we are called to prayer. I have begun to pray the prayer of St. Francis in my classroom in the morning, to ground myself and prepare for the day. Our Rector has asked that we be praying for the church at noon if we can (I'll have to do it at 12:30), because we know there is power in earnest corporate prayer. It is also the beginning of Lent this week and so thinking about what to fast, be it food or something else, was good.

Regardless of the outcome at the end of our church's long road, I am excited about the doors and possibilities that will be opened up due to our diligence and growth in this time of testing and uncertainty.