In response to prominent people saying they were praying for the San Bernardino, CA shooting victims\u2019 families and the survivors, the December 3 headline on the New York Daily News read, \u201cGod Isn\u2019t Fixing This.\u201d The article said people offering prayers, \u201cErred in offering prayers rather than solutions on gun control.\u201d Rather than going down the trail of gun control, I want to go down the other road \u2013 that of praying in a time of crisis. Many, including U.S. President Obama (prior to his continuing push for gun control), said, \u201cOur first response is to pray for the injured and for the families who have suffered loss.\u201d When our Lord faced a life or death crisis in His own life, He went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. According to Matthew 26:36-42, Jesus met the crisis head-on (\u201cSit here while I go over there and pray.\u201d); defined the crisis (\u201cMy soul is deeply grieved to the point of death.\u201d); evaluated the options (\u201cMy Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.\u201d); came to a firm decision (\u201cMy Father . . . Your will be done.\u201d). According to Luke 22:43, He then received strength from God (\u201cAn angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him.\u201d) Obviously, God does \u201cfix\u201d things. Unfortunately, many wait for a crisis to pray. The truth is you will be much more effective in praying in a time of crisis if you are faithful in praying before the crisis. He prays best in times of crisis who prays consistently in times of no crisis. Crisis is not the best time to restore communication with God. Crisis praying is a spasmodic cry of emergency vs. consistent communication with holy God. If you will walk daily with God, when crisis comes, you will not need to cry loudly. He will hear your sobs, and He will \u201cfix\u201d it, according to His will. So pray on!<\/p>\n
Join me this week in praying for the following global concerns:
\n\u2022 Pray for those who have responsibility to respond to the growing concerns of global terrorism, and those who serve in the midst of it.
\n\u2022 On December 8, countries that are predominately Catholic celebrate the immaculate conception of Mary. Pray for those who minister in these countries, as they communicate Jesus as the only \u201cway\u201d to God (John 14:6).
\n\u2022 Pray for Jan as she follows through on Christmas outreach opportunities with not-yet-believer neighbors, friends, and local shopkeepers in Madrid, Spain.
\n\u2022 Continue to pray for missionaries who have accepted their sending agency\u2019s volunteer retirement offer and have returned to the U.S. in need of vehicles and housing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In response to prominent people saying they were praying for the San Bernardino, CA shooting victims\u2019 families and the survivors, the December 3 headline on the New York Daily News read, \u201cGod Isn\u2019t Fixing This.\u201d The article said people offering prayers, \u201cErred in offering prayers rather than solutions on gun control.\u201d Rather than going down…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}