Summer with Grace Women: A Call to Prayer
Some encouragement, a save the date, and some freebies!
In some church traditions, the call to worship or call to prayer takes the form of a greeting or direction at the start of service. Occasionally there is a Scripture reading or a specific prayer directive, then the leader prays before the congregation, inviting the members into worship and prayer collectively. It’s a sign, verbal or otherwise, signifying that the designated corporate prayer and worship time has begun.
Recently, we’ve been thinking about those things which serve as “calls to prayer” in our everyday lives.
When I sit in the fuzzy early hours of the morning, coffee on my lap and feet tucked under the blanket — I am called to pray to the God whose breath filled up my lungs when I rolled over in the night and whose exhales are sustaining me even in that moment.
When I scroll the news and feel that I can’t stomach one more ounce of rage-fueled rhetoric from a public whose outrage meter is grossly overcorrecting (under-correcting?) - I face a call to prayer for the loudest voices on the social media feeds, and for the voiceless, the fearful, the repressed, the overlooked, the mistreated. A call to pray that for God’s sake & glory His church would start acting like who they are.
When I see people begin to engage the difficult tensions and paradoxes of a life of faith, it’s a call to prayer and to remembrance. Have I not wondered at the mysteries of the gospel? Have I not questioned His very presence? Have I not climbed timidly onto my own small soapboxes, with all the confidence of youth, and made claims of certainty and of despair? I have walked those roads and still walk them, yet the tension of paradox is no longer the enemy. It is a call to prayer.
It is a call to prayer when I see a marriage struggle - a call to pray for the brokenhearted and those caught in the ripple effects of sin; a call to pray that the Bride of Christ would not miss the coming Bridegroom in her attempt to beautify herself with the spirit of the age, but instead would awaken to her beauty as a Holy Spirit-indwelled people.
When friends long for a spouse or a child and God will not relent and give them the desires of their heart — a call to pray that they would know His utter sufficiency in all things, His grace upon grace for the life to which He’s called them.
When the lights in the house are all left on (and I know it wasn’t me!) and the electric bill will show it - a call to prayer, with thankfulness for my home.
When the week is packed with interruptions and my list didn’t get checked off - a call to prayer, with open hands for what God may do through the interruptions.
When my dearests are suffering by no fault of their own and the well seems dry - a call to prayer, for the intervening provision of God to show up and for the compassion of God to overwhelm.
When I am simply sick or weary or wondering - a call to prayer.
When I am feeling deep empathy for friends who are struggling to understand - a call to prayer.
When I hold in my hands the frustrating, glorious mystery of the gospel of Christ and all the cross-carrying, sacrificial, laying-down-my-life that accompanies transformation into the image of the Son - a call to prayer.
And I don’t even have to know what to say in prayer — what grace! The Spirit is interceding for us (Romans 8:26-28).
The mystery of the indwelling life of Christ is in part expressed when I see every corner of my day as an escort into His presence. A call to confess my union with Christ, my hope in His return, and my confidence in Him through the act of prayer. Wordless and weeping, tense and fraught, enthusiastic and verbose…however the prayers leave my lips or pen, the invitation is mine: meet with Me, daughter. Learn to see these pangs of earth-dwelling, these dashed hopes and interruptions as invitations into my Presence.
A call to prayer, then.
May we have Spirit-eyes to see the call and willing hands and words to answer it.
We had such a beautiful time of fellowship and conversation on HOPE a few weeks ago during our Saturday morning Redefining Hope conference! Ladies gathered in homes around the community to share a meal, to worship and pray together. It was such an encouraging experience!
If you weren’t able to live stream the event, you can still watch it here on the GBC YouTube channel: Redefining Hope Conference
If you’d like to take a peek at some of the FUN FREEBIES we shared, you can click here to see those: Redefining Hope Phone Wallpapers + Art Prints. You can also get our Prayer for the Nations prayer cards online as well.
And get this: you can go ahead and save the date for our FALL GATHERING! We’ll be creating an interactive worship and prayer experience for our women and would love to have you join us. Send this to a friend and mark your calendars together!
Loved every bit of this! 🤍