PRAYING

… for the river!

And it shall be that … everything will live wherever the river goes … fishermen will stand by it … spreading their nets … Along the bank … will grow all kinds of trees … They will bear fruit every month, because their water flows from the sanctuary (Ezek. 47:9,10,12).

Lord, there are places in my city that I avoid, areas through which I prefer not to drive. I do not want to live or shop in such neighborhoods. Yet, I rarely pray for such places. Forgive me. I need a vision for renewal. I need the eyes of Ezekiel. He saw a stream break out of the temple that flowed with increasing force through lifeless places to the Dead Sea itself. Wherever it went, it brought life. Trees sprang up, healing and feeding trees. Death disappeared. Fishermen were found in places where they had never been present before. Such a vision is almost too much for us. To see our churches as places out of which such a force of life flows that it changes the city is beyond what we have believed possible. Break forth, God. Make our churches forces of vital life-giving power. Let rivers of living water flood forth, unstoppable grace that causes the dead to live. May we catch fish in places where no evangelism has ever been successful. Alter neighborhoods. Impact crime levels. Recruit gang leaders as preachers. Let ethnic pockets of foreigners around us who have imported their gods find true life. Let nothing stop the river. Let it not be confined to the church. Let it break out into the city. Pick the darkest, deadest places – and let them live for Your glory. Flow river, flow. Flow through me. Out of my innermost, flow Lord, Amen.