Morning Prayers and Mourning Prayers

     I'm not a good early riser, which means I don't get a lot of prayers in during the morning hours. Today happened to be one of those days when I woke up a little ahead of my wife and the littles (the bigs are at Winter Retreat), so I got to start my Bible reading early. Normally, my Bible reading ends up coinciding with breakfast, since that is usually my only sit-down time in the a.m.

     All of this led to my looking at Facebook for a few minutes while I ate my delicious oatmeal muffin the Mrs. had whipped up last night and drank my coffee. Within just a couple of minutes on Facebook I had come across three prayer requests and a reminder of the state of our nation. Morning prayer became a priority.

     My prayer this morning was a prayer of requests; prayers that our nation might recover from the road she is on, prayers that myself and my family would stay faithful no matter what, prayers for a family suffering through the delivery of a term baby who has already passed on, prayers for those in a plane crash related to the Iron Dog race. These prayers were requests, but also prayers of mourning; for our country, for a grieving set of parents; for those injured. My morning prayers became my mourning prayers, and suddenly my prayers took me back to Afghanistan, where I prayed over every injured and dead service member I came in contact with, every one that I worked with or encountered there.

     I mourned the situation that had brought us there, and I prayed that whatever was happening in each person's life, that it would cause them to seek God, to strengthen their relationship with Him, or correct it. That the effects would spread like ripples in the water, affecting not just those touched by whatever incident, but those around them; family and friends, neighbors and co-workers.

     We are told that "All things work together for good to them that love the Lord, to those that are called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28) My prayer in Afghanistan, and my prayer this morning was that everything I was reading about and praying about would work for good, to bring souls to love the Lord, to become those who are called. I want my prayers of mourning to become prayers of victory.

     Is this wrong? I certainly cannot find a Biblical example of this kind of prayer. I know that God can use painful circumstances to bring people to obedience. Look at Saul's conversion, or the jailer's. I know that God hears the prayers of those who are seeking Him, but are not yet saved. Cornelius and his household tell me this. But nowhere do I find a prayer that asks for these things to happen specifically. However this has become a prayer that I pray so often, because I don't know how else to ask God to take awful circumstances and use them for good for those who are not His elect, yet.

     I do know that as part of this prayer, I need to be asking God to use me to effect that change, if possible. I am sure that I fall short so often, but I pray that even the tiniest seed will find good soil. I had a very hard time in Afghanistan, and being reminded of it still causes me to question my effectiveness there. I pray that some good will come of what I said or did for someone.

     My prayer for you today is that you would pray these prayers also, that when we pray prayers of mourning, when we pray for good to come from evil, that we all would strive to be the one to help someone through the bad to turn to the Eternal Good.

     Blessings  - Robert