Prayer

Orlando North has dedicated the month of June to learning about prayer, being more deliberate in our prayer, and becoming people who prioritize our relationship with God.  We’ve done several things to bring this emphasis to life this month.  We have taught about it on Sunday nights as we are continuing to go through the series, “We Bow Our Heads.”  Last Sunday evening at service we spent the time that is normally the teaching portion of the evening praying in groups. We’ve also implemented into our house churches one evening during the month where we fasted our dinner and prayed during the entire house church.

This Friday we’re going to going to continue to be deliberate in our passion to become people of prayer.  This Friday at 8:00 pm we are gathering for corporate prayer at Gary and Patsy Hall’s house (243 Timberland Ave, Longwood 32750).  It’s going to be different from our normal gatherings.  We’re going to spend four hours together (8:00 – midnight) with the sole purpose of seeking God.  We’ll pray for a variety of specific issues – sickness, jobs, relationships, emotional stability, etc.  We’ll spend time worshiping.  We’ll pray for the future of our church.  We’ll quiet ourselves before God and we’ll passionately pursue Him.  We truly believe that prayer is the gift God has given us to connect with Him.  As we connect with Him things change.  Our circumstances change.  Our attitudes change.  Our worldview changes.  Our boldness changes.  All because we realize who our God is and that He truly lives in us and provides us with strength and power for all we are going through.  I encourage all of you to join us this Friday.  It may be a new thing for you and that’s good.  Stretch yourself and allow God to stretch you.  Be willing to go to another level with God and see what He will do in you and through you.

It’s no coincidence that during this month of prayer we have seen some pretty serious attacks on loved ones in our church that we need to be intentionally praying for:

Jim McEachern is not doing very well.  He is at ORMC undergoing several treatments.  He had a food tube surgically put into his stomach yesterday as his muscles on the left side of his body are not doing much and therefore food was getting caught on that side of his throat.  He has twelve tumors in his brain that are doing a lot of damage and a lot more throughout his body that are currently taking a backseat to the ones in his brain.  I want to urge all of you to be praying for Jim.  As long as there is breath the fight for his life here on this earth continues.  We submit him into God’s hands and God’s will, but we fight together with the family.  Please pray for his wife, Terri, as well as all nine of his kids.  His daughter Joy who is part of our tribe has really been a beacon of light for the family but she is struggling emotionally right now as you can imagine.  Lets just love on them as best we can.

Kevin Williams’ mom, Shirley, has been going through a very difficult trial of her own.  She is in the ICU at Florida Hospital South.  She had a duplicate surgery yesterday on her intestines because they were not healing from the first surgery.  Please pray that the parts that are supposed to heal together would do just that this time around.  While in the hospital she developed a very serious infection in her salivary gland known as MRSA.  Please pray that this infection would be gone and Shirley could begin to recover wholly from this ordeal.

This morning Grandma Hall was taken to the hospital as well (Florida Hospital North) as she was very lethargic and complaining of back pain.  She doesn’t remember a whole lot.  The doctors did tests to see if she had an infection in her blood.  The results came back about an hour ago and there is no infection.  She’s having a hard time remembering things and seems to be a bit on the sad side.  Please pray for her during this season of her life.

I love the church…I know when you read these things they’re not just statistics to you.  I’m sure your heart is aching when you read this.  Mine is too.  But our power, thank God, does not rest in our wishes nor our emotional instability.  Rather, our hope…our ONLY hope is in Jesus.  May we turn to Him now and continue that relationship that He so desperately desires to have with all of us.  May He be our hope.  May our hope not be in the healing itself, but rather in the one who has the capacity to bring healing.  May our hope not be in a doctor.  May our hope be in Jesus.

RD