Pray4
This November at Faith Promise is all about PRAYER. On the weekends we are learning about how to make circles around our requests to God in a series called “Ripple”. And at fpStudents we aim to help 6th-12th grade students discover the purpose behind prayer through a series called “Fortune Cookies, Genies and Magic 8 Balls”.
As I have been studying about prayer in anticipation of this season, I was reminded of Peter in Acts 12. He had been imprisoned for telling people about Jesus, and a group of people had been praying for God to intervene on his behalf. An angel shows up at the prison and miraculously walks Peter out of the prison! Peter immediately goes to the house of his friends, and this is what happens next:
“…he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer the door. When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, ‘Peter is at the door!’ ‘You’re out of your mind,’ they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, ‘It must be his angel.’ But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished.” Acts 12:12-14
This account shows us two cool things about God. First, when we pray we should expect God to show up! Praying without expectation is as intelligent as talking to a rock. If God listens to prayer, then we should expect Him to care about our requests! Second, while prayer is a personal conversation with God, there is great value in support of praying in a community. Often we tend to keep requests private and miss out on allowing our community to experience the joy of praying through a situation with us.
During this special fpStudents series, I’ll be encouraging students to submit their prayer requests via text message to our staff. If you are reading this I’d love you to join us! If you know of a student or family who needs prayer, you can send requests to the number “75309”. Just start your text with the keyword “pray4”. A team of students and leaders will be praying for these requests each week.
