3 strand prayer is in full swing right now. Looking at the lines of cars rushing toward the church in the cold around 5 AM in the morning, I think about how we are a blessed congregation and church. I guess the pastor next to my church had a chance to come in to work early one day (American pastors don’t pray early in the morning, so they normally start work at 8 in the morning), and he asked what we were doing so early in the morning, marveling at the crowd.
This year, we had about 100 more in attendance than the last year on the first day. On the second day the attendance went down a bit, but we are consistently over 700 in attendance, increasing each day. Many people are attending from the NLF side so we run out of translation receivers, and children who came home during the winter break are attending the prayer service as well before they head back to college. This is a good opportunity for them to start the new semester with prayer. I feel the content of the book we have chosen for this year is especially helpful. I hope the book and words in the bible will trigger the men of the house and their families to grow in strength.
The various people who attend our prayer service is another pleasure to God. We have many non-Koreans attending the service, and the large number of young adults attending the service surprises me. People say that lately, early morning prayers are attended mostly by the older generations, but in our case, we had more young adults from singles Mokjangs than people who weren’t. Not only that, some of the team who come up to the platform to pray are made up of 11th graders, and they make me smile. Also, their prayer is not about asking God to do something for them but for them to pledge something to God. Those who are relying on God at a young age to fix their problems and are making resolutions have nothing to fear in their lives, so I feel proud of them. But most of all, I feel proud when I see VIPs at our church praying here and there. Last year, we had VIPs making perfect attendance during the prayer period and strengthening their faith and I hope this year we will have many more of these people.
After the early morning service is over, I remain praying until 8 o’clock as usual. During the 3 strand prayer period, I pray for the prayers you have submitted to me. My goal is to pray at least twice for every prayer requests you have submitted. I hope God will answer our prayers so that we will get to hear many testimonies on how God’s grace enabled us to live this year as well.
However, there seems to be people who are praying without partners. If you pray alone, it is easier to give up so find people to team up with now and start fresh from this Monday and finish the race. Also, for those of you who do not have the courage to join, have courage. Applaud goes to people who complete the race in Marathon even if they are not ranked. God will give praise to those who complete their prayers even if they couldn’t make perfect attendance due to personal reasons.
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