Day 3 of "27-Day Prayer & Fasting Journey" with Rev. Karen Handy

Greetings in the name of Christ. 

My name is Karen Handy and I am the Presiding Elder of the Maryland East district in the Northeast Conference of the Global Methodist Church. Welcome to Day 3 of 27 Days of Prayer as we prepare for our Annual Conference gathering on May 8-10 in Cortland, NY.

The 11 churches of the Maryland East district are located on the Eastern Shore of the state of Maryland. What I love about our district is the hometown love that is shared where neighbors are friends and friends are neighbors. This area is dotted with quaint and historical towns and cities and the landscape is filled with farmland and waterways. You cannot beat the Maryland seafood (crabs, oysters, rockfish found in our area. This is our own piece of heaven. Our churches are Centreville Methodist Church, Kent Island Methodist Church, St. Luke’s Methodist Church, Bethesda Methodist Church of Preston, Tilghman Methodist Church, Grace Methodist Church of Cambridge, Asbury Methodist Church of Sharptown, Mt. Vernon Global Methodist Church, Snethen Church, Christ Methodist Church, Asbury @ Mt. Vernon. Pray for us today, that we would faithfully live into our shared mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ and to spread scriptural holiness across the globe.

We in the Maryland East district are eager to see many of you at Annual Conference in May. We encourage you to use these days of preparation to hear God’s Word and pray with us as we prepare to fan the flame that the Holy Spirit has kindled in us all.

Here is today’s focus Scripture passage from Luke 18:1-8: 

1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ 4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’” 6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Today’s Prayer Focus

Jesus told this parable of the Persistent Widow to encourage faithfulness in prayer, even when our requests seem unanswered and our search for justice unrequited. Center your prayers this day on all those around the world who long to align with the Global Methodist Church but are unable to do so because of legal or financial impediments. Pray persistently!

Today’s Suggested Prayer (This Day: A Wesleyan Way of Prayer, by Laurence Hull Stookey. Copyright © 2004 by Abingdon Press. Used by permission. p. 151, alt.)

God, righteous and enduring:
Look with pity upon those
who grow weary and discouraged in their search for justice.
When it seems to them that nothing ever changes for the better,
that the forces of evil will always prevail,
remind them that you, the Almighty, have endured
not years or decades of resistance,
but whole centuries and indeed millennia.
Yet you promise that your righteousness will triumph,
that evil will collapse.
Save the tired strivers after freedom and fairness
from the doom of Sisyphus:
daily hoisting a mighty rock up a high hill,
only to have it tumble down again.
Assure them that the stones they move,
by grace will be assembled into a house of righteousness
upon the highest of the mountains,
and that all peoples on earth shall stream to it,
that all may walk in the ways of the Lord.
Grant this through Jesus, the chief foundation stone. Amen.

You can find this prayer, and all the other prayers of the 27 Days, on the Conference website, northeastgmc.org.

May the Lord richly bless your faithful prayers. Amen.