Borrowed Prayers

I read this today and I just had to share it. I am often reminded of the wonderful promise God provides in the verse that Pastor Glenn writes here. This passage comes from our church's weekly bulletin and I deleted some. Pastor Glenn writes....

"On January 15, 2009, US Airways flight 1549 took off from LaGuardia Airport in New York City. A few minutes into the flight a flock of birds disabled the plane's engines. Captain Chesley Sullenberger managed to set the plane down safely in the Hudson River. All 155 passengers survived. The media dubbed the event, “the miracle on the Hudson.” In an interview Katie Couric asked the pilot, "Did you, at any point, pray?" Sullenberger replied, "I would imagine somebody in the back was taking care of that for me while I was flying the airplane!"

I wondered about the power of borrowed prayer. I am a believer in the power of prayer,
although I am not one to pray for God to reorder the universe to accommodate my personal agenda. I am more prone to pray for God to reorder me that I might live faithfully in the universe. Still, I have prayed many a prayer for myself and others, including those on the plane.

The Christian faith is a team effort with God being the first person on the team. You
didn't have to take time to pray. Your teammates were doing it for you, starting with the head coach. Your job was to run with the ball, and you ran the play of your life that day! I can't imagine that God isn't proud.

We all have a role to play. Sometimes that role is to fly the plane. Sometimes the role is to care for the victims. Sometimes the role is to charge the doors. When I feel separated from an event and powerless in so many ways, I pray. I pray to soothe my soul, and I pray to support the souls of those in peril. The rationalists would say my words are empty. I say that my prayers give voice to my faith, and in times of trial and disaster we need all the faith we can get. And sometimes, “When we don't know how to pray, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us in sighs too deep for words.”

So team, I’ll loan you my prayers when you need them, and I’ll borrow yours when I need them. And when neither of us has words to pray, we’ll borrow the sighs of the Spirit. Together we’ll face triumph and disaster in the fellowship of faith. "

Borrower and lender of prayers,
Wordgirl