I spent the morning praying through our weekly church prayer letter. It is comprised of requests written down and dropped in the offering plates at the end of four different services each week. I don’t usually pray for all of them in one sitting because there are so many and because it is too emotionally draining to pray for all of them without a break. There are so many people who have cancer or other serious illnesses, and there are so many who are having family problems of one sort or another, so many looking for jobs and struggling with finances, and so many with family members who have no relationship with the Lord.

I believe in the power of prayer with all of my heart, but I also believe that God doesn’t fix all of our problems because we pray. I do believe that He gives us the strength to manage them, that He provides us with the wisdom to solve them, that He will prompt other people to come alongside and encourage those with the trials, and for sure, I believe that He will use all of our trials to cause us to grow to be more like Jesus in character.

I also believe that the more unified and loving a church is, the more that church will be used by God in a sick world to attract people to a saving relationship with Jesus and to make disciples. Trials in the lives of those in a church aren’t what makes the church unified and loving; it is the volume of prayer for each other, the support, the help, and the encouragement that is given to those who are struggling that causes the church to become a healthy “Body of Christ.”

I am working hard to do my part to be a significant factor in the growth of JBC to be more and more unified and loving as a church family. I hope you are as well.