More C.S. Lewis quotes on prayer

by Richard Long,

For your New Year’s Eve consideration, here are a couple of thought provoking ideas from one of my most favourite authors.  In this case C.S. Lewis provides some thoughts about why prayers are not answered.

“I must often be glad that certain past prayers of my own were not granted.”

from Christian Reflections: Petitionary Prayer, 1953

“Prayer is request.  The essence of request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted.  And if an infinitely wise Being listens to the requests of finite and foolish creatures, of course He will sometimes grant and sometimes refuse them.”

from The World’s Last Night and other Essays: The Efficacy of Prayer, 1959

Are you receiving our free e-newsletter?

by Richard Long,

  I’m back from my short hiatus down in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) for Christmas family events.  While there I talked to several people who often read this blog.  I was curious to learn that not all of them knew that we send out a free email newsletter every couple of weeks from NHOP.

  Our “News from NHOP”  usually reports on what has happened recently with a visiting teams, has announcements about upcoming events, like Schools of Prayer, or special programs, and always has a few relevant prayer points so that intercessors can pray effectively for our national government.

  You can subscribe to our newsletter here.

   You can read back issues here.

Why not tell some friends about us and encourage them to subscribe.  We had at least 200 new subscribers in December of this year.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

An Advent prayer based on the O Antiphonal’s from the 12th century

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny
From depths of Hell Thy people save
And give them victory o’er the grave
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,
In ancient times did’st give the Law,
In cloud, and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

Listen to it here

Mary’s Prayer

As we approach Christmas day, here’s one of the greatest prayers of the Advent season, prayed when a young girl met her older cousin Elizabeth and was encouraged that God was really behind all the strange things that were happening to her.

 

“Mary said: With all my heart I praise the Lord, and I am glad because of God my Savior.   He cares for me, his humble servant. From now on, all people will say God has blessed me. 

God All-Powerful has done great things for me, and his name is holy.  He always shows mercy to everyone who worships him.  The Lord has used his powerful arm to scatter those who are proud.  He drags strong rulers from their thrones and puts humble people in places of power.  God gives the hungry good things to eat, and sends the rich away with nothing.  He helps his servant Israel and is always merciful to his people.  The Lord made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his family forever!”   Luke 1: 46-55 CEV

Next Nazarite Program – March 13, 2009

by Richard Long,

   We’ve already received our first full application for the next Nazarite program and today we expect a couple of potential candidates to drop by for a visit.

  If you are between the ages of 18-35 please consider whether this Spring is your special season to set aside 14 weeks to pray for our nation.

  If you know someone who should be considering this seriously, please encourage them to check us out right away.  Don’t delay.

All the information, application forms and details are on our Nazarite Call website  along with a great intro video.

Persevering in Prayer

by Richard Long,

  Jesus had a lot to say about the topic of prayer.  He taught about the importance of faith, of alignment and of using his name.  But by far the aspect of prayer that he taught the most was the importance of persevering.

I guess he knew how easily we give up;  how impatient we tend to be.  We tend to want a quick fix, and if we don’t see an answer to our prayers within a few days, we rationalize that maybe God is going to answer a different way, or we didn’t ask the right way or some other explanation.

What if God took the same approach?  What if he wasn’t patient with us?  What if he didn’t show perseverance?

The perseverance of God.  That is a supremely magnificent characteristic of the Father.  He is so longsuffering with us in our failings, yet we are so impatient with him. 

Maybe these two things go together.  God doesn’t answer some of our prayers right away because He is still being patient with some area of our life that we are being slow to change.  Therefore he won’t give us the answer we are looking for until we have brought ourselves into a place where He can answer that prayer perfectly.  Maybe it is our lack of perseverance in an area that the Lord is trying to help us with that is the real cause of the delay in our prayers.

Something to think about …

What is Roger Mitchell up to?

by Richard Long,

Roger Mitchell

  You will remember that we had the delight last Spring to host Roger and Sue Mitchell (Passion UK) here at NHOP.  They attended the National Prayer Breakfast, spent some time consulting with our leadership team, and then taught a day-long seminar on the future of intercessory ministry.  It was awesome stuff.  (We recorded it by the way.)

  Recently Roger has ventured into the world of blogging.  This is really helpful because a number of us have been following him as he works on his doctorate at the University of Lancashire.  His specific area of study not only informs the whole intercessory movement in Europe, but speaks into the very culture of the Church at it’s present moment in history.

  Here’s the intro to his latest blog …

Last month I set the ball rolling for this Daywatch by contrasting the exercise of sovereignty with the kingdom of God. This month, as we give special thanks for Christmas when “the word became flesh and dwelt among us,” (Jn 1:14) I believe we need to take this further for the purpose of intercessory mindset change.

Interested in reading more …

Check it out at Daywatch: Intercession for the New Day.

Pray to the Lord of the Harvest

by Richard Long,

   We have prayer-walked our neighbourhood around the National House of Prayer on numerous occasions with various teams.  We are surrounded by low income housing and there are many immigrant groups represented in the community, many of them francophones.

   Each time we pray through the neighbourhood we pray that the Lord would do something new and wonderful for these people.  There is some good work being done by local missions but there is a need for so much more.  We pray for more Christians to come and be “missionaries” here in this very needy area.  We ask in line with the scriptures that the Lord of the Harvest would send forth labourers into the fields.

  So … we met an answer to some of our prayers today!  A young man whom we had met once before told us of how he and 5 other student/young adults had intentionally moved into the neighbourhood just a couple of months ago in order to be an incarnational witness.  They are very committed to meeting people and reaching out.

  In fact this weekend they are distributing 4000 “Jesus” dvd’s house to house with the help of 30 or 40 other volunteers.  Now that’s something we can pray about! 

  God answers in some amazing ways!

Another Good-bye.

by Richard Long,

  We said good-bye to our final 3 Nazarites this morning, so the nest is empty again.  Today we took our cook out for lunch to say thanks for all his labours of love and seemingly unlimited patience and flexibility.

  Jay Blackburn was God’s gift to us when we needed to find a cook for the Fall in very short order.  He was only travelling through on his way back to the UK after working in a camp in Alberta, but agreed to stay and help when we asked him to pray about a 3 month detour.

  Jay has been trained for pastoral ministry and believes that the Lord wants him serving somewhere in Canada.  We are praying for the right fit for him.

If you know of a situation that could use a very flexible, relational man who loves the Word and loves evangelism, please send us a note.  We can send you his resume.  Jay is heading back home to north-western England for the Christmas break, but then looking for the next chapter in his life.

Please pray for him!

On the Wings of an Eagle – Steve Bell

by Richard Long,

   Our family really loves the music of Steve Bell.  It was amazing to see him touch the lives of 800 people last spring when he was the guest artist at the National Prayer Breakfast.

Here’s one of our favourite songs based on Isaiah 40:28-31.