1986 May/June issue Part 3

Prayer

"Order private devotions so that they become not arguments and causes of tediousness by their indiscreet length, but reduce your words into a narrow compass, still keeping all the matter; and what is cut off in the length of your prayers, supply in the earnestness of your spirit; for nothing is lost while the words are changed into matter and length of time into fervency of devotion. Break your office and devotion into fragments and make frequent returnings." Jeremy Taylor (seventeenth Century).

Please pray for me as i write a small booklet (perhaps eight to ten pages) for children, ages ten to seventeen, about prizing "the gift you only give once," virginity. This is one thing i must do to try to reduce the appalling statistics of teenage pregnancy and promiscuity. Ask God to help me make it readable, simple, truthful, and helpful, for His name's sake. Pray about an illustrator and  publisher for the booklet. ( No, i haven't finished Amy Carmichael's biography. I need prayer for that, too).
Pray for those who suffer because of the sins of people they love. Ask the Lord to teach them in this experience that He suffers with them (compassion means "to suffer with"); that they are thus given a chance to share His suffering (1 Peter 4:13, Colossians 1:24, Philippians 1:29), to bear His yoke (Matthew 11:29), and to know Him in a way not otherwise possible (Philippians 3:10). (All of these describe the opportunities offered to us in any kind of suffering, but perhaps it is more difficult to be willing to learn when suffering comes through those we love).