A Day to Pray and a Virtual Prayer Community, episode 65

0:00 If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right here at When You Love a Prodigal and also help and hope for your own life journey. In this episode, we are offering the best gift we can for you and your loved ones. We will pray for you. We will pray for anyone that you ask us to pray for. Be listening so you can know how to get engaged. It was June 2nd several years ago. 18 of us made a large circle in our Florida room.

0:41 We each shared why we had come, a brief overview of our journeys with a prodigal. Some were new to me people, and so they were new to me stories. Others were reminders of long waits to see challenges, of despair and hope intertwined. Some of them just hadn't happened yet, and some were in process. What did we have in common? We each loved a prodigal. Some were taking their first shaky steps in the wilderness and really appreciated hearing from people who had walked that path for a longer time.

1:23 Others were feeling their way in a shadowy darkness, no light at the end yet. And a few had stories of light and new life and great hope. We had all come to the only place we thought offered any answers on our knees. We can do all sorts of things. We can even do rehabs and programs and information, and they can be helpful. But it is on our knees going to the Lord in prayer where we see the change that really happens. At first our prayers were tentative, were these people we were with safe, but then honesty and vulnerability and tears opened our hearts and we connected together at the throne of grace, petitioning our Father for each other, for the many who requested prayer, for our own loved ones and for ourselves.

2:22 Our prayers became tender, desperate, impassioned. We confessed our unbelief and declared our belief. We extended arms of faith and love to each other. We beseeched and we begged and we hoped to see something happen. In the end, we recognized that our prayers were as much for ourselves as for our loved wanderers. And we acknowledged that loving a prodigal was indeed a wilderness journey, but that each beloved prodigal was a gift, a true treasure to make us more and more like Jesus, and gratitude filled us even as tears flowed.

3:13 And now it is almost June 2nd again, time for the Worldwide Prodigal Prayer Day. Last week we talked about how the Worldwide Prodigal Prayer Day on June 2nd each year came to be. This week we will look at how it happens each year and how you can be a part of it as much or as little as you desire. And then I will tell you about our wonderful year-round virtual, safe, and private prayer community. So perhaps you submitted a name or several to be prayed for on June 2nd. Then what? You might be asking, how do I participate?

3:56 Let me take a minute to answer the questions that we often get asked. First one is, who can pray for prodigals on June 2nd? One and everyone can pray from all over the world, because they are all over the world. Most often people who love and at risk or rebellious family member are eager to pray. Two, what is prayer for prodigals? Do I have to be a member to pray on Prodigal Prayer Day? Prayer for prodigals, or P for P, is a community of people who have joined on our password-protected website for resources, encouragement, and a safe place to request prayer and pray for others.

4:45 It is free and all online. We sponsor the World Wiped Prodigal Prayer Day, but you don't have to be a member to pray with us on June 2nd. Information, resources, and personal requests are available to members only because it is a password-protected site, but you are welcome to join, and I will explain how at the end of this podcast. So how do we pray on June 2nd? You may pray in any way that works for you. You may pray as long or as little as you like. Most people try to join with others, friends, neighbors, church, or family.

5:30 Join small groups or unzoom or Google Calls at some point in the day of June 2nd, and they may pray for just a short time or an hour or some pray for many hours. You can pray by yourself. You don't have to do it with someone else. Maybe you're not comfortable praying in a group, but God will welcome you to come on your knees figuratively, if not literally, to ask Him for your loved one. I pray personally, on and off throughout the day. There's other living I have to do, but I also have to manage all the requests that are still coming in, so I'm on and off getting the names and praying for them.

6:16 But at the end of the day, I almost always have a group like the one I described at the beginning who come to my home and will spend a couple of hours together with each other, listening and caring, and then praying for each other as well as for our loved ones. Then people say, well, that's good, but what I really meant was how do we pray? I don't know how to pray like this. Again, anyway, you are comfortable. There's no prescription. There's no requirements. I have a booklet and the link will be in the show notes called Prayers for Your Wilderness Journey. If you don't have a clue how to start praying, this will give you a lot of places to start, a lot of ways to pray.

7:03 You might want to click on that link and you can download it. It's free. It offers just variety of ways to pray and helpful scriptures. What is the list? The list is the centerpiece of the Prodigal Prayer Day. At this time, we have more than 6,000 names for whom prayer has been requested. It is only first names, but God knows every one of them. Some of us will pray through the entire list, lifting every name up to the Lord, asking for him to keep on loving and pursuing these ones who have turned away or been rebellious, drawing them back to those who love them and also back to God himself.

7:56 Many will pray for a section. It's alphabetical. They'll say, well, my prodigal's name begins with C, so I'll pray for all the Cs or something like that. Whatever works for you. We ask that everyone who's participating, spend a little time at least praying for people on the list because we promise them if they put the name on the list, we're going to pray. If you are a member of Prayer for Prodigals, you can access the list there on the welcome page. If you're not a member, you are always welcome to join us. You can access the list in the show notes, probably on the day on June 2.

8:44 I don't always get through the entire list on June 2, so I keep it and keep praying through the list because I want to make sure that I pray for every single one of those people. You can use it all year. It's available, and a group of us meet every couple of months online, and we pray through much of the list again and again because we want to be engaged in bringing about what God is going to do in each life. How do we put names on the list? You can look at the link in the show notes, which will tell you you can offer a name for the Prayer for Prodigals list, or you can write to prayerforprodigalsedgmail.com.

9:33 You may continue to add names for prayer on June 2 all day, June 2, but it's nice if you do it before. Another question, is there anything else we need to know? If you've not had a chance to read the devotional, so I'll give thanks that I've been writing, to help prepare your heart and mind for intensive prayer and entering the battle with the evil one, there's a link you can check in the show notes. Anything else to bless and encourage you as you pray? You might enjoy the Prodigal playlist on Spotify, and there's a link for that as well.

10:17 Then some of you might want to join our virtual community of Prayer for Prodigals. We have intentionally required a password, so you feel safe and comfortable to post specific requests for your loved one, and maybe other related challenges or the things that it's causing in your family. Others will also feel safe, so they can post requests. We do encourage you, if you join, to try to participate by praying for other requests. You can certainly be happy yours is there, but there are others who are asking for prayer, and you can do that on your own, or you can join in the highlight of the community and write out a prayer for some of those requests.

11:08 It just blesses people so much when they see their request and they see five, eight, ten people who have responded with a prayer in response to their request. It just is such a blessing and an encouragement that God's listening because many people are praying for your request. They'll do the same for you. They'll come out if you've posted a request or asked us to post a request, which you can also do, and they'll come and they'll see your request, and they will pray for it and hopefully write out their prayers. It makes it a very beautiful community.

11:52 Another thing we would request is that when something happens, either a little more often than we would like, it's more things that we need to pray about, but often we get the response that say, hear what God did, see what happened in our prodigal's life. We really appreciate when you update us because we all then get encouraged to see the answers. We love when your update is good news, but even if it's not good news, we'll keep praying. So I'm eager to get to pray for your loved ones. God bless you.