In our rather busy contemporary society, it can be easy to get so involved with a lot of our demands that we forget the significance of community. Inside our hectic world, it is rather easy to feel as if we do NOT reside in community. However, we are in reality a part of numerous communities! If you work, go to school or have kids going to school, reside in a small town or possibly a big city, visit Church, etc, you are part of various communities. Now allow me to ask this question… Is it important to you that all of these communities remain strong? If you've ever been part of a school that had to close or possibly a church that became divided, you will most probably answer YES! to this question. Now allow me to ask you another question… How much control over the strength of your school community or your church community have you got? Even if you sit on the school board or are a church pastor or elder, you'd be smart to realize that you are only a single cog in a much bigger system! Your level of power and influence even in high leadership roles is likely to be HIGHLY reliant upon the perceptions and actions of numerous others. The end result is this... Your absolute quantity of control is limited. While we all like to believe we have control over most facets of our lives, communities can quickly emphasize that we actually have minimal control. The larger the community, the larger the number of people whose behaviors we cannot directly control. In sum, those characteristics can add up to greatness or poorness, and usually some combination of both. Each individual drives particular actions and consequences which have ranging levels of impact (good and bad) on fellow members of the community. And that sobering reality leaves us here… Our need to PRAY for all our communities! Our simple requests to God for formidable communities are generally wise and honoring to God, who is delighted to notice us understand His sovereignty over all things. Whenever we pray to God, we recognize His good hands over our schools, churches, towns, and cities. Our God understands all of the details in ways that you and I never could! Apparently, our most powerful opportunity to “control” the fitness of our communities is by using prayer! If you are not already, I want to inspire you to incorporate your communities within your prayer lists. Strong communities often display the character of Christ, being the hands and feet that literally build the Kingdom of God on the planet around them! Please visit my FREE ministry site at OnlinePrayerJournal.com for lots of tools to help accelerate your spiritual growth!
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