Prayer

Last night I came across this passage (Acts 4:23-31). This takes place right after Peter and John were held in prison for preaching about Jesus after they healed a man who had been lame since birth. After the two men are finally released they return to their Christian brothers/sisters and pray to God:

"And now, O Lord, hear their threats, and give your servants great boldness in their preaching. Send your healing power; may miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus."
After their prayer, the building where they were meeting shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, And they preached God's message with boldness.

At CSM NY we take our students on a day-long prayer tour, which we say is about 7-8 miles but in actuality is more like 10 (some of our leaders have had those step-counters). On this prayer tour we go from Battery Park looking out at the Statue of Liberty, to China Town/Little Italy, to Times Square, to Harlem, to the Bronx, to 5th Ave, to the World Trade Center site, and finally to/across the Brooklyn Bridge (a little over a mile alone). The purpose of this prayer tour is to try and see the city with God's eyes and God's heart and to pray for the different things we encounter. And at the same time we are also hitting some of the major touristy sites and so it's a great time for our groups as well.

After reading that passage last night the concept of prayer was really on my heart today. And by the end of the day I had come to realize how in the past few weeks I have definitely been drifting away from prayer. Sometimes I get so caught up in doing what I've been trained to do that I forget to seek God's specific purpose for my every action. On the Prayer Tour, for example, I saw how many times I could get stuck on just giving the groups all the information that I’m supposed to give them or to have the directions all figured out, instead of simply carrying forth what the purpose of the Prayer Tour is--to pray for God's city.
This is something I hope to work on over the rest of my stay here. I want to really pursue God in prayer and to constantly be seeking his will for my life.

To close, I want to give glory to God for the gracious weather he provided us. It was supposed to rain today and it was sprinkling a little in the morning. If the rain got too bad we would have been forced to switch our prayer tour to a not-as-exciting one. The rainy-day one is no fun. So our group prayed for sun. And we got it. The hottest part of the day was at the end of our day as we were crossing the bridge. As we were making that journey some of the kids were joking around asking God to bring back the rains. This, however, was not funny to me. I'm from L.A. man, so you know I can't do rain.

-Josh, CSM New York City Host Summer 2008