It was great to be back at Parkway this past weekend.  We enjoyed visiting a small, historic (circa 1898), community Methodist Church on our vacation, but it wasn’t the same as home.  Parkway is truly a special place.
 
             For those who may not have heard, we had a great local church conference Sunday afternoon.  I think we finished in record time, and the fellowship meal was great.  I was in coconut heaven—coconut crème pie and coconut cake.  It doesn’t get any better than that!
 
             I was reading this week the story of Abraham interceding for the city of Sodom.  This is the first extended prayer recorded in the Bible.  What is interesting is that Abraham clearly believes that God may listen to his request.  He structures his argument carefully believing that he can possibly change God’s mind.  So he asks, “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?  What if there are fifty righteous people in the city?  Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it?”  (Genesis 18:23-24) The Lord responds, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”  (Genesis 18: 26)  Abraham continues to negotiate, whittling the number down—forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty and finally ten.  In the end God spares Lot and his family even though there are only four of them.  Such is the power of prayer.
 
             Thomas Merton, as a young man, pursued with great success a career in literature.  But for reasons he did not fully understand, he felt drawn to spend some time in a religious community with men who devoted much of their days to prayer.  He wrote that when he left he was struck by the haste and anxiety of “normal” life: “My heart sank within me.  I thought:  ‘What am I getting into?  Is this the sort of thing I myself have been living in all these years?’”  The thought occurred to him that in some real way these few men devoted to prayer “are doing for their land what no army, no congress, no president could ever do as such:  they are winning for it the grace and the protection and the friendship of God.”
 
             None of us may know the true effects of our prayers this side of heaven, but prayer truly changes things!
 
             That’s why we are planning a special pre-National Day of Prayer service on Wednesday night.  Instead of our normal Bible Study we are going to devote the hour to worship and intercessory prayer.  We intend to pray for our nation, our leaders, and our church.  Even our youth and children are going to participate.  We hope you will plan to join us.  Exciting things happen when God’s people meet to pray!
 
 
                                                                              Have a great week!
                                                                              Pastor Barry