Went to a funeral today, that of a great saint in the Lord, my sister in the Lord.  There was a large gathering, and we saw many friends from earlier years not seen in a long time.  It was good to catch up and be refreshed by their life-tales of how God is working in their lives.

Weddings and funerals.  It seems that these events call together people from near, far, longtime and newer days.  Jesus was invited to weddings we know.  There is something comforting about being with those with whom time has been spent, either now or in the past, a certain connection of continuity.  Weddings and funerals are happenings that for which people set aside time, indeed make time as we say, to be there.  They are rituals of honor and dignity.

Funerals honor a life; weddings are the beginning of a new pattern of life.  We all turn out.  Of course, the other main event in our lives is the birth of babies.  Why don’t we all turn out for the birth and celebrate just as we do at a wedding or the home-going of a dear saintly brother or sister?

It’s obvious – timing doesn’t work well for gathering a crowd to cheer when a new baby comes – although in all of those movies about monarchies, everyone was on watch when the queen went into labor.  And mothers don’t need hundreds on the doorstep with attitudes of expectancy.

But I think there is a big crowd of rejoicers at births anyway – probably in Heaven.  A woman forgets the pain of her labor because a new life has come into the world.  Surely in Heaven there must be a great clamor of rejoicing at a new birth.

Lord, help us to celebrate every new birth within our own hearts with great rejoicing.  Lord, we ask that you bring rejoicing to people standing for pro-life causes, when a new baby lives to tell about his or her birth years on down the line.  Help us to be faithful in prayer and in rejoicing.

Topics:  Pray for more rejoicing, heavenly and Earthly, for new life coming into the world.
Missionaries, foreign, for LIFE issues

We bring up our human offspring just like these hinds (deer) in this scripture. We give birth and then spend many years helping them grow up and leave to be on their own.  Here God speaking to His child Job, teaching him about humility before Himself, the God of both Job and of all creation.  God asks Job about some details of nature, both in this scripture and in verses farther down. 

Do you yourself know how many weeks or months it takes for a baby deer to develop in its mother’s womb?  Do you know the time of year when deer would most likely be able to bear their offspring?  Do you know the months of gestation for an elephant?  For a walrus?  Neither do I, without going to some source of knowledge of this type.

No, we like Job cannot know it all.  Never on this earth will any one person know every fact in all of the universe for all time.  But our God does.  And yet he mentions a gentle mother deer as an example of His knowledge, and at the same time here can we not see an example of His care for all of his creatures who have breath, including us humans?  Farther into this chapter 39 God speaks of hawks and eagles.  The Bible is replete with examples from nature.

What can we learn here?  Perhaps it is that, in regard to LIFE issues and abortion, that God knows about every animal gestating within its mother.  And He knows about every human being developing in the womb.  And so He knows how every child in gestation came into being, by choice or by “accident.”  Both within marriage and without, there are “accident” children.  But God doesn’t view them as accidents.  He knows that each one in His eyes is purposeful and precious.  He has plans for them just as He plans for the frolicking fawn gamboling in a woodland pasture.

God loves life, whether human or in nature.  We must stand with Him for it.  Lord, help us to renew our intentions to stand for LIFE, in all forms.  You know the human babies being conceived at this very moment.  Lord, help us be able to turn thoughts toward these little lives, that are inherently big in Your eyes.  Help us to pray more and stand more.  Stand more firmly.

Topics:  Grant us grace to remember to pray or all unborn babies and to stand firm for them. 
Missionaries, domestic, for LIFE issues they face

A friend sent me photos of a doe elk giving birth to her calf.  They are at first a bit startling especially for those of us who did not grow up around farm animals and their cycles of life.  But still, it is beautiful. 

This soft-eyed mother knows exactly what to do for this very specific moment in her life.  She appears unafraid of what is happening to her.  She knows how to help her baby on his way into the world.  She is patient until it all is finished.  She does sort of crouch at one point to facilitate the process in some way, such as God Himself describes in Job regarding deer.

She knows to give the small one some nudges toward standing up, however wobbly those legs.  She is so gentle.  The sweetest photo of all is an elky kiss before lunch.  And there’s no hesitating as to where lunch is on the part of the new little boy or girl.

Motherhood is a natural for most creatures in nature.  And, since God didn’t supply us with a manual on bringing up kids, I guess parenting is a pretty natural essence on the part of humans.  This is one reason for us to promote birth and LIFE across the board.  It’s just natural.

Certainly, some mothers fall more easily into the role than others.  Some who do not think they want to be mothers find out how rewarding it can be.  Couples whose child has a handicap have a more complicated task in bringing up their Bud or Rosie in many ways.  Sometimes it’s harder for bonding to grow when a child is not able to give back affection and attention.   

But all in all, God put it into us to want children and to bring them up.  This makes it doubly difficult for moms whose motherhood is taken away by abortion – if they did not want to kill their baby.  They, and the fathers both need prayer and other support.  We must help them.  We must not fail them.

Lord, help us to compassionately care for those who have to fight against their motherhood instincts because they’ve been coerced into abortion.  And if we don’t know any women such as this, help us to pray for all of them everywhere who struggle, sometimes for decades, with this that has happened.  May You fulfill their hearts through the giving of themselves in other ways.  You told us about the birthing of a fawn.  You then know of every human being in a womb; may they live to see their natal day and bring natural joy to their mothers in the same was as a doe elk innocently does.

Topics:  Pray for all mothers anywhere who are right now about to lose their babies against their will – and for their families and doctors to honor LIFE.   
Military leaders to consider LIFE
                 

Pray as you are led directly from God or from postings on prolifeunity.com and the Prayer Pivot for Life.  Choose as led, any or all topics, events, groups, organizations, states, Pro-Life Action Calls, Prayer Action Calls, Peter and Patrizia Shinn and more.  With information about what is going on “out there,” we can pray more knowledgeably and with focus.  God hears from Heaven.  He moves valiantly in Heaven and on Earth.

2 Chronicles 7:14
“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”  RSV
[Scripture quotations are from] Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.  (Read this scripture and more at http://prayerpivot.com).

From the timing of a comet making its way around and around in space to the timing of a spot appearing on the wings of a lady bug, He is in control.  From the forming of new baby stars so far away and fiery we can’t imagine them, to the shaping of a new baby in the womb, He knows what He is doing.  He has even filled seemingly empty space in the universe with something unseen called dark matter.

If Someone is so powerful and orderly, why would we have a problem believing He has expectations of his creations such as us?  Why do we question His integrity of character and go against it when we say brutally taking a life from the womb is ok, it doesn’t matter?  Why would there not be a moral order and expectation as well as a physical one? 

We must look higher.  And not only look, but attempt to absorb at least a piece of how God is.  As we look up,  and can perhaps can know a bit more about Him and try to place ourselves in perspective with His awesomeness, we may be teachable.  Being in the presence of awesomeness may lead to humility and thus an openness for being taught.  Is it out of the realm of possibility to think that we would think of life when in this humbled position?  He created Earth.  And then what did he do?  He populated it with living things. 

We cannot, we must not let our worldly endeavors (many of which are, of course, necessary and life-sustaining) overcome our vision and position of humility in the presence of the great Life-Giver.  Lord, help us to consider Your awesome Being and to surrender to Your higher ways and order and to know over and over that we must stand for LIFE.  There is no other way.  You are the Way.  You are the LIFE.  You are God.  What more do we and the babies and the elderly need?         

Topics:  Pray for humility before God to understand His purposes for LIFE and then to be more open about promoting it on Earth.
U.S. Marines to consider LIFE issues properly
                                                                                                                                                                                           

When considering our viewpoint toward abortion, it can so quickly slip into our thinking that we would agree that women should be able to make their own decisions about their bodies, that the right to make a choice about life or death for a baby within their bodies should be theirs.  Many of us Christians even think this way for years or decades.  We are stuck looking down, or horizontally.

We must look higher.

Christ tells us this.  “Look up, and lift up your heads. . .”  There is Someone above this Earth Who is bigger and better and wiser than any of us can imagine.  This Someone has established unfailing order, a higher order in the universe than those of men. 

Psalm 61:2:  “From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”  KJV This rock is Jesus.

Isaiah 55:9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” KJV

We just must stop looking down, or horizontally:  Look up.  Look higher.  Look to God and His order.  Go against earthy views; and decide for LIFE. 

As Creator, He ordered the universe with huge and intricate structure.  Seasons and life cycles follow seasons and life cycles.  He is at the center of everything and at the top.  In human form, He told men to let the children come to him.  He came as baby.  Perhaps that is the greatest statement against killing within the womb.

Lord, we ask that our hearts and minds will always be oriented upward and higher.  May we seek Your higher ways, and may we be comfortable with our stance on LIFE over abortion because of Your higher ways and your own growth in Mary’s womb.  Help us to avoid lesser thoughts and goals and, just like babies, grow up, not down.

Topics:  Pray for your mind to be elevated to God’s higher-than-Earth thoughts and ways.
Local Boards of Education

Harps are mentioned many times in the Bible.  In I Samuel (16:23)we learn that David would calm King Saul; David “took an harp, and played with his hand: . . .” KJV.  Times of rejoicing by the Israelites were accompanied by the accompaniment of harps.  Harps in Heaven are mentioned in Revelation.

We don’t know exactly what harps in those days looked like, but it might be safe to assume that they were instruments played by causing strings to vibrate.  In a similar way, our own voices are created when air passes over our vocal cords causing vibration.  The strings on harps in Israel were plucked or strummed for joy; so should our voices vibrate out our joy in the Lord and in LIFE itself.

We want to vibrate joy at the birth of every new citizen of the world.  We want to praise with our voices at this event; we want to uphold all women who are about to bring life to our planet. 

Lord, may our praise and joy sound out whether from instrument or voice.  May we be so vocal for LIFE that our whole being may vibrate as with a harp.  Help each of us to be a singular soul for LIFE, that we may express joy at the birth of every new person – and help those who need it with the new life in their families.

Topics: Pray to be a stronger voice and song for LIFE on Earth.
God’s purposes for our nation to be completely carried out down to the smallest detail

These little one-liners of description in the bible can be quite interesting, though brief.  Anyone who enjoys music, plays music, or writes music might like this Genesis 4 verse, 19.  For all time, it is recorded that a man named Jubal was the patriarch, evidently, of a family of musicians – and not only musicians broadly spoken – but specifically those who “handle the harp and organ.”  God must think harps and organs are important, to have mentioned them so specifically here.

Recently on television there was a program about young persons, teenagers, in a competition of harpists.  They were incredibly good.  They were playing an instrument incredibly complex.

The grand prize for the winner was a grand, brand new golden harp.  It was awe-impressive.  And it apparently was a musical descendant, if you will, of the family of Jubal not very many generations into the history of mankind.  In other words, the harp (and organ) still abounds, and it is a great honor to have earned such a wondrously beautiful instrument built especially for the contest’s winner.

Music is woven in and out of the Bible – even harps many times.  David’s music calmed King Saul.  And perhaps both today and then, favorite songs for many are the lullabies sung to our wee newcomers into the world, as we rock and rock – or walk and walk with them to bring on sweet baby-sleep.  We want all mothers-to-be to look forward to singing or playing soft songs for their babies.  We want them to look forward to that time of cuddling “up really close and very personal.”  Even dads can enjoy rocking their son or daughter, as do grandmas and grandpas.

We must pray for pregnant women and the fathers of their babies, that the desire to deliver the child into the world will overcome all doubts and perceived obstacles to that child’s wellbeing.  Lord, we pray that you will help mothers in crisis to know that there is help – from you and from others in life.  We pray that they will put aside the clamor and voices of doubt and think of the lullabies to be sung instead.  Maybe they will even play a strummed or plucked song and hum along to a harp.       

Topics:  Pray for lullaby songs to be strong in the hearts and minds of women in crisis pregnancies, along with God’s voice, to turn them toward their babies.
Pray for all countries considering abortion legislation, that LIFE may win.

Pray as you are led directly from God or from postings on prolifeunity.com and the Prayer Pivot for Life.  Choose as led, any or all topics, events, groups, organizations, states, Pro-Life Action Calls, Prayer Action Calls, Peter and Patrizia Shinn and more.  With information about what is going on “out there,” we can pray more knowledgeably and with focus.  God hears from Heaven.  He moves valiantly in Heaven and on Earth.

2 Chronicles 7:14
“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”  RSV
[Scripture quotations are from] Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.  (Read this scripture and more at http://prayerpivot.com).

Interesting, the rows planted in this particular field of “something”. . .  the plants are not up enough yet to determine what they are, if one is a city person.  There is a somewhat different pattern of planting here, I see.  The rows are all perfectly parallel to one another.  We might think they would be right-on straight.  But no.

These rows, so parallel and orderly, are not straight.  They are wavy.  Each row of plants winds this way or that, but they all do this-or-that together.  They have great tracking, but they could appear to be in some disorder because they do not follow a grid of lines drawn straight.

There are probably reasons for this, the biggest one maybe being that this land itself does not lend itself to a perfect grid of lines and squares.  The land is probably somewhat undulating.  Or the land has been terraced to make it more usable.

So, when this land gets watered, either by God’s rain directly, or by an encompassing sprinkler system, what is the result?  Does it matter whether the rows or plants are perfectly straight or wavy?  No.  In fact, the rows that are wiggly may just trap moisture in a certain way that improves production.  The rows in a more definite grid may be easier to cultivate because of their predictability.

The same with us.  God uses us “where we are planted,” to use a familiar phrase.  He takes us and uses us to the benefit of his kingdom; he grows us well.  He decides our path, whether seeming straight or terraced.  And the harvest is His, not ours, although we benefit from the growth as we see His plans working for good however we are planted.

Lord, help us to trust You to plant us in the best manner possible and to bring us up to a good and Godly harvest, whether in fruit of the Spirit or in souls won for You.  We ask that we be in tune with you; we ask that you call us to be in tune, constantly.  We want Your growth in fields ready to harvest, especially for LIFE.  Thank you for Your plantings in our lives and cultivation. May the same go for families in the crisis of a surprise pregnancy or with a difficult life of an aged member.

Topics:  Pray for desire to be cultivated as God sees us and not to attempt to grow our own harvest.
Mayors of all towns and cities

At Bible study last night, we discussed the responsibility that we Christians in America have to pray for our nation.  Attention had been called to this scripture that mentions the three branches of our government:  Judicial, legislative, and executive.  God is all of these.  He is the one who had oversight of the forming of our nation.  It is often said that our Constitution is a living document.  That is not surprising in that the creator of our nation wrote, through men, a book that is living:  The Bible. 

We discussed our responsibility to pray because prayer is the way we seek God’s will, and only He can convict anyone to change their ways, habits and attitudes.  We have probably all been told incidents during wars wherein God’s will was sought in the hot pursuit of prayer, and battles would miraculously turn to the good.  God doesn’t change.  He still answers prayers.  He still loves our nation.  The prayers of believers are the key to “getting to” God so that He can bless us. 

How can we not pray?

Can it be that as we pray for LIFE and the culture of LIFE, we are praying for our nation?  This has probably been said before, in these devotions.  It bears saying over and over – God desires LIFE.  He detests the killing of children.  “They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin” (Jer. 32:35).  This was unthinkable to God.  So when we pray for LIFE, we do pray into His will.  What we do in His name will be honored.  We may not pray for a branch of our government, we may not pray for our government in totality, but when we ask God to bless LIFE in our nation and to end abortion, we are praying for these also. 

We must continue, with renewed fervor.  God, help us to pray for our government; it needs You just as much today as when You were guiding our Founding Fathers to create all of our government.  Help us, HELP US to realize our responsibility here and to pray and pray and PRAY.

Topics:  Pray for increased awareness of the need for prayer!
Community leaders of towns and cities, big and small                        

We often write here that we must pray for those unknown to us, even for those whose involvement with life/death in the womb is known to perhaps only one or two persons in the this Earthly world.  We pray for attitudes and sins these people keep in secret (alongside our own long lists of them).  Is there any point to this?  How can our prayers for someone we don’t know, who has a secret problem or sin kept tight, accomplish anything?  Am I just in a state of naivety?           

No.  Naivety does not apply here.  But God does.  Because He is everywhere, all the time, and is all-knowing, the fact that we do not know for whom we pray matters not an iota.  He matters.  He knows each and every person in the world, knows every detail of them and their lives, and his Spirit intercedes for us when we do not know how to pray (Romans 8:26 KJV).  So we should not think of ourselves as silly for thinking we can make a difference in this way.  We can!

Perhaps we could think of it as the great experiment in praying with a blindfold on.  Just because we can’t see what is going on doesn’t mean our minds and hearts are not at work.  Blindfold or not, our inner selves continue to think and hope and process words and prayers.  This is quite good.

So when we feel led to pray for certain people or a certain group of people in a certain and similar circumstance, do it!  By believing not in our prayers, but in the God Who answers, we gain a positive slant here, one that God makes effective.  He is the one who will convict in answer to prayer; He is the one who can see into the future, see a shocked father-to-be and convict and prod until that man does the right thing by his preborn offspring.

Lord, help us to realize that even though we may feel a bit unsettled to think of praying in this way, you settle us (I Peter 5:10, KJV), and you answer these prayers even if they are said in general, to include groups of people.  Even then you know each specific person who needs the answer to that particular prayer.  When we pray for “all fathers who have just been shocked with the mention of a pregnancy,” you know who each of those men is.  You intercede for us.  Your Spirit is faithful to do this.

Topics:  Pray for understanding about prayers for those we will never know or see, that we may be faithful to trust God because He knows who they are and what they need, especially with unexpected pregnancies.
Community Impact Teams in churches

Fathers of unexpected children vary in demographics a great deal.  Some have had difficult childhoods resulting in their poverty in living.  Some are corporate men away on a “business” trip that leads to a one-or-two-night encounter.  Some are wealthy and just “enjoy” the worldly benefits of a kept-woman.  Some are “family” men with a mistress on the side.  Some are pagan in belief.  Some are Christians.  All of these men must be rudely shocked when their partners say they are pregnant.  Then, what to do? 

I’d like to say that what these men do would reflect on their integrity.  They should do the “right thing.”  Well, it does reflect—for the positive or the negative.  But what can someone do when the mother of his child is miles and miles away – and his wife doesn’t have any idea of his transgression.  What does a wealthy man do when his “lady” says this, and he does not want anyone to know?  He’s a community leader! 

Too often integrity is compromised, and the woman, no matter her feelings about this baby within, is hustled off to a Planned Parenthood or other facility to end that child’s existence, at the stroke of a blade or swallowed meds.  This woman can end up crushed, not only for the loss of life, but for the loss of the man who was important to her and who then disappears from her life.  The man pretends this never happened and may think he experiences no remorse. 

We don’t know about anyone’s remorse.  We do know the effects of abortion on women.  Not good. 

So we write off these men as crass and unfeeling and selfishly self-centered.  We harden our hearts toward them, even though we won’t ever know them or their story here.  We call them cads.

Not that we shouldn’t decry their insensitivity and callousness.  But on the other hand, do we remember that God loves each of us sinners, and he wants redemption for these men?  The Saviour died for them just as he did for all of us.  Maybe we have not murdered a human life and abandoned a child and its mother, but we have sinned in our hearts in myriad ways about which we would never want anyone to know. 

We must pray for these men, the hearts of these men, their souls before the Lord.  He still loves them and wants to soften them into his arms of forgiveness and love.  He wants them to be lovers – but lovers of Him and of others for their great good.  How can any of them pass on God’s truth to any of their children if they do not know that God loves them and offers forgiveness?

Lord, help us to not write off every man we learn has done ill toward a women with child.  Lord, help us to pray for them, not condemn; we pray for your help to change them to love you and do the “right thing” no matter the difficulty of the circumstance.  Let them be aware of positive choices for the children they have created, and let us be there in some unseen way to bring about right choices, through your answers to our prayers.

Topics:  Pray for men who have fathered children they don’t want and for their women they don’t want, that they will turn to the Lord and know Him through some pathway we cannot even envision.
All churches in America, that they may stand for LIFE.