Active Prayer

So six groups left the church, maps in hand, and spread out into the neighbourhood putting up posters on telephone poles. As they passed houses, they stopped for a moment and said a prayer for the ones living behind those walls. Some people ignored them. Others asked what they were doing. They received suspicion and maybe even a few hostile glances; they received smiles and words of thanks.

The posters were handmade by the youth and said, “Today I prayed for you-that you would have compassion/strength/hope/peace/love/healing/etc. Now you can pay it forward and pray the same for someone else.” Along the bottom of the poster were tear-off strips with a single word written: compassion or strength or hope or whatever else they might need. The invitation was for the reader to take as much as s/he needed and to make sure to offer the same for someone else.

At the corner where a woman hit a lamp post and died of her injuries, they prayed. In front of the liquor store, they prayed. Where homeless people slept on park benches, they prayed. For six kilometres around the church, they prayed. And God heard those prayers and said, “Cool!”

Thanks for trusting us to be your messengers, God. Lord, in your mercy?hear our prayers. Amen. — HS