40 Days of Praying - Day 7

Singles Ministry - Pray for our singles and for the people they will reach this year. Pray for new opportunities to reach young professional singles in our community.

James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Heal the sick who are there and tell them, 'The kingdom of God is near you.' - Jesus

1 Corinthians 7 An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs — how he can please the Lord. ...An unmarried woman is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit.

As we pray for the singles minsitry two thoughts come to mind. First, regardless of how it happens, there are few experiences more painful than divorce. No one pledges a lifelong commitment expecting to end up in a divorce court. To arrive there requires betrayal and disappointment. Wedding rings are hard to take off your hand. You can't do it without breaking your heart. And then there are children. They suffer innocently and painfully. There is a line in the musical 'Les Miserables' that I think of when I think of the children of divorce. "There's a grief that can't be spoken, there's a pain goes on and on."

So what does a Christian community do? We do what Christian communities have always done for the broken hearted and the disoriented. We extend compassion, healing and good news. God can take what is dead and make it alive again. God can restore joy and hope and life. The way of Jesus is a way of healing. It is a path of life. I am so grateful that GCR has been offering compassion, hope and healing for years. How many people do you know who found life and Christ in the single's ministry? Let's pray for God to continue to use that ministry and bless Burke Brack and the other leaders to be Jesus to those hurting from divorce.

But what about the never married? What about the young career singles? Paul's perspective was that they represented an opportunity to boldly follow Jesus. They could live for the kingdom without the concerns and demands of family. It's not easy. They need loving church family to help them battle loneliness, but what a powerful group they can be. History is marked with extraordinary lives who changed the world as single people. Amy Carmicheal, Hudson Taylor, Mother Theresa and hundreds of others all traded devotion to family for devotion to the mission of the kingdom. It's what Paul said would happen and it's how we should think about it. Right now we aren't doing much to reach and release this group. Let's pray for God to launch something. Let's pray for an explosion of young, kingdom more than career minded singles in our family.

O Father of compassion and mercy who defends the cause of the widow and is father to the fatherless, bless our ministry to single adults. Grant us hearts of compassion not judgment. Give us hands of hope and healing. Let us help those who are sick at heart find wholeness in Jesus. And protect the souls of the little ones.

Lord, bring us workers for the kingdom who are young and single. Let them be filled with zeal for your work. Let them loose. Help us find them. Help them find Jesus. We ask for workers for the harvest from the harvest. For Jesus' sake we pray. Amen.

Grace.