A Call To Prayer

"if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."  2 Chronicles 7:14

I seem to be posting this verse a lot on the blog.  It just keeps coming up, and it really is a great verse to share exactly what God is thinking about us. God WANTS to hear his children praying.  He WANTS to hear His favorite kids (that's you and I, by the way) calling out to Him for mercy and for grace.

Just last week I was sharing some musings about how I was wondering if, in light of all the recent tornadoes in our country, if we, the church, were missing out on an opportunity to do something awesome regarding natural disasters.  I'm still wondering on that a bit.  But there is something more to it than just being pro-active and going out and calming the storm.  There's prayer to God, on behalf of our nation, to ask for mercy and ask for God to quell the storms before they even begin.

I've had so many dreams in the last several months involving tornadoes.  Every time I have one, it almost makes me sick... In every single one, there has been a tornado- or multiple tornadoes, and I rise to the occasion.  Usually I am speaking in tongues at the time, and then I command the tornado to go in Jesus' name.  The tornado always goes away.  One would think that would be a good dream- perhaps it's building up my faith for something in reality.  I had one just the other night though, and this one seemed more vivid to me, and it woke me.  As I lay there in the middle of the night, all I could think of was how much I did NOT want to have to put that to the test.  It really bothered me, and I just wasn't even sure how to respond to the dream.  And I told God that much.  I told Him that I appreciated the tornado dreams that are bolstering my faith, but that more than anything, I did not want my children and my family in a position to need to put that faith to the test.  This has been on my mind for two days now, and last night, there was a timely word in the verse above.

"A man has joy by the answer of his mouth,
      And a word spoken in due season, how good it is!"  Proverbs 15:23


Perhaps those dreams have been building up my faith for a time of great need, but I choose, instead to be proactive about a time of great need.  Just the other day another wave of tornadoes swept through a state in our country where they seldom have them in the first place.  If that isn't a sign to us that we should be on our knees, praying for our country, I don't know what is.  So I am praying that I won't have to put any kind of faith to the test because of the weather.  I am praying that God would pull back the devastating winds that seem to be rising in every corner of our country.  I am joining up with Christians all over our country in praying for mercy for our nation, and praying that the death, destruction- and most importantly- the fear will be gone from our lands.  I've blogged before how the spirit of fear is not from the Lord, and tornadoes surely bring great fear with them.  I am praying that the destructive weather systems will cease, and that instead of spending time focusing on fear and destruction, that we can focus on God, and His wonderful goodness that is just waiting to pour out onto the nation who will ask Him for it.

God has great love for this country, and He certainly doesn't want to see it ravaged by tornadoes and flooding and severe drought.  But He is wanting to hear from His children.  He wants to hear us come together in agreement as we turn to Him and ask Him to calm the skies and the weather system.  The weather people blame all the extreme weather we've been having on climate change, and I've read in so many places that we just need to "get used to it".  Please.  God is bigger than climate change, and God is bigger than anything the earth can dish out.  It is time for us to focus on God, and it is time for us to ask Him to right our wrongs.  It's time for us to ask Him for forgiveness for our unbelief, and to ask Him to fix the climate problems.  God can do that in an instant!  In less than a moment, God can completely change the climate of our planet to be right, where a super cell storm or a magnanimous earthquake or a vicious volcanic eruption are very rare and random- and not the everyday.  God can fix all of this!  We just need to ask Him.

Please join me this weekend in focusing your prayer time on praying for our planet, and for our country.  God wants to hear from us, He's just waiting to hear from us.  And then we can give Him ALL the glory when our weather returns to normal.