583 Wartime Prayer  

KEY SCRIPTURE Matthew 24:6-7 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

RELEVANCE

In this evening time of the year—the final few days—when the Western world winds down from work and ramps up the spending spree, think about the value and power of prayer. 

Our key scripture sees Jesus prophesying future affairs of a troublesome nature. But the Christian life has its earthquakes, floods, wars and battles anyhow. We find ourselves going to prayer for corporate matters—those things that affect several of us—while other times, we go through our own private bit of hell, seemingly on our own. Despite being neck-deep in distress, we wonder how the world can continue without stopping to help.  Many times, our trouble seems much bigger than we are, with the only option being to surrender—to 'succumb to the inevitable.'

But then there is God.

The following is an excerpt from an old writing I came across while cleaning my shed. It drives home the importance of going to God in prayer first, whatever we're going through.

"Early in June 1940, Britain held a Day of National Thanksgiving to praise God for answered prayer and deliverance. Two weeks earlier, the country had responded to a call to prayer from King George VI. Newspaper photographs of the time show long queues of people unable to get into a packed Westminster Abbey.  In the days following the prayer, a heavy storm broke out over Flanders, beginning on Tuesday, 28th May. The Daily Telegraph on 8th June reported that the 'darkness of the storm and violence of the rain' meant that British troops were able to retreat to Dunkirk 'with scarcely any interruption from any aircraft, for the aircraft were unable to operate in such turbulent conditions.'This unseasonal weather, which grounded the German Luftwaffe squadrons, enabled more than 300,000 British soldiers—ten times the forecast number—to be safely ferried across the English Channel. The press and the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, described this as 'miraculous', not least because of the 'great calm' that settled on the Channel. The Telegraph reported: 'Those who are accustomed to the Channel testify to the strangeness of this calm.; they are deeply impressed by the phenomenon of nature by which it became possible for tiny craft to go back and forth safely.' The King called for further prayer during the war. "

Christians are called to go to God first & foremost. Here, we see an entire country going to prayer for the Lord's intervention. In times of desperation, even people with a remote belief in God joined in prayer. Had they not called on God for His mercy, many more lives may have been lost

PRAYER