At The End of Every Prayer

Matthew 24: 3-8 “³As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

⁴Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. ⁵For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. ⁶You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. ⁷Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸All these are the beginning of birth pains."

We should not be surprised. The Lord told us it would be like this. Police gunned down in the streets while protecting a peaceful demonstration, black men gunned down by police who reacted with their baser instincts rather than their training, hate crimes that cannot be numbered, ISIS and everywhere in the Middle East, Africa, South America, and anywhere hate makes its incursion and the weak are prayed upon.

How do we pray? What proceeds our ‘Amen’?

All around us our friends and family fall ill, our children succumb to drugs and alcohol, and people violate the weak. Our parents are aging, we are aging, and our days are spent trying to find our car keys just to keep going. We worry for our children and their children and how a world that is overrun by people consuming resources at unsustainable rates can support them in any reasonable state.

How do we pray? What proceeds our ‘Amen’?

Our times of respite from the woes of the world are short and interrupted. We seek peace for ourselves and the world and the moments of calm can only beat a hesitant staccato without rhythm. We wait, we pray. We work, we rest. All around us our neighbors attempt to hold life together as they can manage.

How do we pray? The Apostle Paul gives us a window, a hint of how to proceed in Romans 8: 26 & 27. And so we must take his lead and be earnest in our prayers for our loved ones, our neighbors, and our world. Let ourselves groan.

“²⁶In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”

What proceeds our ‘Amen’? The Lord Jesus himself taught us to pray and first instructed us to ask for the Kingdom to come. We ask for our basic needs, we ask for forgiveness, we cry out for God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus tells us to knock and keep knocking, ask and keep asking.

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There is only one complete answer to the afflictions rampant in these days. Jesus must come again, first in our hearts, then as the lightening is seen from the east to the west, He must come in power and glory.

And so to that end I will add to my prayers before the ‘Amen’, ‘Maranatha, come Lord, come quickly’.

In His grip, jerry