Prayer Request Chain

It feels good to glorify God!!! Yesterday while I was pumping away in the mother’s room, I was thinking about all the activities we have been planning with my mom friends here in Singapore. Do this, do that, go there, visit this or that… a whole lot in our list… So how about organizing something that would glorify God as well? I thought what about a prayer request chain? Yeah, that sounded like a good idea. :)

I thought about its benefits. One is it would make us closer to God as we become more prayerful. We must not neglect our prayer time as we now need to pray for a sister’s prayer request. Two is it makes us closer as a family because we can pray together. And third is it makes us closer as friends as we get in tuned to each other’s needs, struggles and pains….

Fortunately my friends Bebang and Maggie were open to the idea. (Yey!)So we have started to voice out our prayer requests and this week we must start praying for each other. After a round of suggestions, what we will be doing is to pray for a particular request for each family. So this means, 3 families will be praying for the prayer request of one family!!! This is the bonus point about it! We can storm the heavens with our prayers and we can join hands in pestering the Lord with our petitions. Heheehe!

Lord, thank you for these prayer partners: Rulona family and Uy family. May you bless them always and keep their families tightly bonded. And may we live to glorify your name in our lives always. Amen.

Persistent Prayer

I felt the Lord speak to me during our household meeting last Saturday… (Thank you Lord for the household group you have given us!)

The topic of persisting in our prayers just like the parable of the persistent widow reminds me of something in my life that I have persisted in praying for. I think it’s been… let me count… 2 years plus since I have been praying for something to God. It’s a very simple prayer for my career and up to now that prayer has not been answered. I have asked my husband to pray with me and this has been his prayer as well. There are times when through the course of certain circumstances, I thought it will soon be answered but eventually, it wasn’t.

There are a lot of reasons I can think why God has not answered that prayer. And it boils down to two things: One is that I maybe praying for the wrong thing. Meaning, God may have something else for me which is packaged not in the way that I have been asking for. And perhaps he has already given that.. (grin).. and I’m yet just too stuck up on that that packaging that I wanted in the first place. Two is that maybe it’s not yet the perfect timing…

While it’s true that God works in mysterious ways, one thing’s for sure… He is NEVER late. He is not early or advanced either. Hahaha! That’s the catch! He works just in time. And the moment of waiting for that perfect time is exasperating at times… Who knows the PERFECT timing but God himself?

You know that feeling of wanting to go somewhere but you just can’t? Not yet anyway. And the hold back is frustrating. So what to do? That’s the beauty of persistent prayer!!! Just pray and pray and pray and pray… Eventually, God will probably be pestered enough to answer. Or you will have a change in heart and see the beauty of His other plan… Either way, to just pray with an expectant heart gives peace… makes the waiting less excruciating and the frustration bearable… (for an impatient person as myself. Hahaha)

Don't Wait for the Brick

I'm sure you've heard or read about this email of how a young boy had to throw a brick to get the attention of a rich man driving his expensive car in order for someone to help him put his handicapped brother back into his wheelchair.

I've learned my lesson on this. A lot of things have happened in my life where I can only testify that it was God who was intervening and working. It's amazing how out of the blue a colleague or a friend will tell you something or start a discussion of something that is very relevant to your life at that moment... Something that you have been struggling with or worrying about...

Thank you Lord for speaking into our lives softly... As always, you work in mysterious yet humble ways... I pray that I can learn this kind of humility and listen carefully to your whispers. Don't let me wait for you to throw a brick at me. Amen.

So is the current financial crisis affecting the world a brick to get our attention?

Are the silent pleas of God for the world to change falling on deaf ears thus the crisis? Is the Lord putting the world to its knees with this crisis? This is what I have been wondering and musing about.

Interestingly, the greatly affected are the white collared jobs. People in the middle class. Often the ones who are apathetic about others for their lives are quite comfortable. Financial analysts say this is going to be a deep and prolonged recession. And that the labor market is a lagging indicator of the crisis. Job cuts and retrenchments would soon be seen all around the world but it would be a slow trend. It will not be all at once. This scares me in a way and leads me to be more prayerful. But I know God never leaves us. If God puts us through this economic crisis, He will help us get through it.

Maybe the Lord is telling us to go back to the Philippines... as with hoards of Filipino workers going back after losing their jobs. Maybe God is telling us not to abandon our country and to continue to have faith in the Philippines. Lots of maybes but God has an ultimate plan for everything. We just need to listen and pray more to feel his guidance and live in the way He wills for us.