Most of our people welcomed the new year with much hope in their hearts. That is a very good beginning for our country’s reconstruction. Still, we need more.
Remember the two other pillars to complete hope? Faith and love.
According to Christmas Evans in the devotional reading for January 2 of the Streams in the Desert, “ faith is not a sense, nor sight, nor reason, but simply taking God at His word.” George Mueller, from the same devotional, wrote that “the beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.”
With hope that things will turn around and get better for our people, let us believe and trust completely, taking God at His word that whatever we ask for in prayer, as a people, He will grant. We only have to believe.
Cast all your cares upon Him for He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7).
Do not fear, only believe (Mark 5:36).
Can you all imagine what can happen to our people, to our nation, if we all believe and have complete faith in the Lord that our prayers will be heard?
So much to pray for together, collectively.
We pray for sufficient, sustainable, healthy, nutritious food for our hungry- that will also involve our bountiful harvests and catch for our food producers.
We pray for humane jobs for our unemployed and sufficient salaries for them enough to sustainably meet the basic needs of their household.
We pray for sturdy shelters for our homeless, that they are protected and kept warm and secured in homes they can call their own.
We pray for honest, public servants to make life easier and more comfortable for everyone. For those in government, in politics, in the judiciary, in the legislature, for the high and the mighty in business as well, that these earthly powerful mortals realize that their power is not theirs and not merely for their own interests to use and enjoy but that their power and wealth should be shared primarily to serve God and His people.
And the list of prayers for our nation, our people can go on and on but no problem, as there are enough days of this whole new year to pray for all the requests and desires that we will lift to the Lord together, collectively!
So that our people are reminded to go on a national prayer mode each day, P.Noy may wish to create a Prayer Commission, far more powerful than the Truth Commission or any other agencies that he may create during his term. The Prayer Commission, tasked with starting and proceeding during the day, to remind our people about the power of prayers, about the power of God for the resolution of challenges that beset our people, our nation, can be a very valuable legacy to share with our people, especially our young.
Let the churches ring their bells daily – let us resume the 6 pm prayer signaled by the church bells. Better still , let us also have the 6am prayer, apart from the 3pm and 6 pm prayer time and bell tolling to remind all to turn to the Lord, to lift to our God all personal and national problems and challenges!
Let us have prayer brigades all throughout the country and wherever the Filipinos are all throughout the world and let us unite and meet together at 6am, at 3 o’ clock and again at 6pm to pray for our people, to pray for our nation, to give thanks and praise to God each day, as a prayerful nation.
Wouldn’t that be a very beautiful practice to share with the rest of this presently troubled world, another handog ng Pilipino sa mundo, just as we did during EDSA 1?
Let those bells toll for us to remind us all that with hope and faith, love is the greatest of all. Let every collective prayer of ours as a nation, let every church bell that tolls for us three times daily remind us, as we are reminded in 1Jn 4:11-18, about the power of love, of God’s love for us all for God is love, the one who lives in love, lives in God and God in him.
We lift our fears, our needs, our concerns as persons, as a people, as a nation, as a global community to God above who continue to assure us that “ there is no fear in love. Perfect love drives away fear.”
Let us then proceed with the rest of this new blessed new year collectively as a people,as a prayerful nation and allow our hopes to be coupled with complete faith and perfect love and we let go, and let GOD take over.
Email at cherryb_thefreeman@yahoo.com