Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Are you sick of being sick? I am! What a strange season this has been for all of us. So many sick or with sick family members. Blah. 

My brother-in-law and I were commiserating the other day and he wrote to me: 

“2 Samuel 16:14 says of David’s journey under the dirt-shower of Shimei ‘The king and all the people with him, arrived at their destination exhausted. And there he refreshed himself.’
I really think that exhaustion is par for the journey for us, brother, and comes with the territory. Why should I expect otherwise? Won’t this make the rest of Heaven all the more refreshing?”

Those were some words of life to this weary soul. Yes, this life is tiring. Besides battling sickness, we have all our own failures, foibles and sins to deal with. And an enemy of our souls! It is a wonder we get anywhere. 

But we do get somewhere, don’t we? 

Romans 8:31–32 "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?"

Can you even imagine life as a Christian without this promise? I can’t. And as I look at the year ahead, I am banking on it. We all have some form of trial ahead of us in this year and He will never turn against us. He gave us Jesus. He will give us everything. Oh, for grace to trust Him more. 

One way you build trust is through prayer. And one way you can build your private prayer life is attending public prayer meetings. Prayer meetings are like booster shots — they get you up and running again while helping to keep up your good spiritual immunity. We have joyfully set aside one of the first weeks of every January for our Week of Prayer for over twenty years now. We meet once a day, every day of the week to pray for one hour. I want to encourage you to come to every meeting. 

Why not?

I mean, you might have some good reason to skip a meeting here and there, but I can think of lots of good reasons to try and get to every one. 

You will pray every day this week.
You will hear and learn from the prayers of others.
You will grow in love for your fellow members as you pray with them. 
You will be reminded of things to pray for that you have forgotten about.
You will pray for the conversion of every child in our church. 
You will commune with God in meaningful prayer every day. 
You will hear the concerns and see the tears of your fellow members, thus having your own heart warmed to intercede for them more faithfully in the days to come. 

That was a Paul Martin stream-of-consciousness list. For free! It took me less than one minute and I bet you could add seven more good reasons to come. 

Now, would Satan like to suggest 10 good reasons to skip the prayer meetings. You bet your bottom dollar! He is an expert at it. So I am just cutting off that liar at the pass and urging you to pray about how much you can pray. 

Sunday night it all starts. And ends the following Sunday night. 

So looking forward to being back with you on Sunday. 

In His Grace,

Paul