Prayer and Praise

Scripture

Lift up holy hands in prayerand praise the LORD.

~Psalm 134:2, NLT

Quote

All prayer, pursued for enough, becomes praise.

~Eugene Peterson

I do know that Peterson has compromised his faith to placate the politically correct and I don’t normally quote folks who lean to the left or have gone woke but he does say a lot of things that I agree with and his quote on prayer is right on the money. I wish I had thought of it myself. Back in the last century, 1969 to be exact, my home church {Sardis Springs/Limestone County} had a real revival. The actual revival services went eight days but the nightly prayer meetings continued for six months. I had never seen anything like it before or since. Our prayer meetings were hard on married men with families. First of all, we started them at 9:00 PM which is kind of late for a family man but I was single and working in Huntsville at J.C. Penney {stock room} so I couldn’t get there before 9:00. We began with about a dozen but our numbers grew and our participants changed. When we lost one, someone else would show up to take their place. During these six months of nightly prayer meetings {7 days a week} I noticed something. We seemed to always begin with burdened hearts but by the time we prayed through the room would be filled with praise.

I would love to tell you that the prayer meetings kept going for years but that didn’t happen. It got down to two people but the principle didn’t change: we would start with a burden but in the end there would be an eruption of praise and we would leave rejoicing. There is something liberating about taking your burdens to the LORD and leaving them there with Him. I do most of my praying alone these days. Prayer meetings are not very popular. Personally, I would go out of my way to attend a good prayer meeting but I am the exception, not the rule. Even if you pray alone, if you pray through, your prayer will turn to praise.

Extra

Keep praying for our friends battling cancer: Gregg Holladay, David Mote, Aaron Warnic, Sandy’s Dad and brother…Jim and Jimmy Mays and Mickey’s friend Jim. Pray for them to have a good day and for a wave of grace and peace to overwhelm their soul. Pray for the NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER service tomorrow at Southside in Decatur at 11:30…attend if you can. It will last less than an hour–probably more like 30 minutes. A good crowd would help moral.

Have a great day and thanks for reading the blog.

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