Getting Help

Luke 12:32 (ESV)
“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

We are a small church as churches get measured. We are referred to as an inner city church as demographics get measured, even though we are not in the inner city. Our numbers for most of what we do, are small. We believe that God desires us to pray and hears us when we do. We believe that He is more willing to give than we are to ask, that He is more willing to listen than we are to speak and that He is more willing to forgive than we are to repent. In the run of a week at Thistletown we have several prayer meetings and Bible Study/prayer meetings. There is the prayer and fasting group once a month on Monday evenings. There is the weekly Tuesday afternoon Ladies Bible Study, the Tuesday evening small group prayer and Bible Study, Wednesday evening Prayer Meetings at the church and at the same time in a home in one of the burbs where some of our people live. Probably an attendance of twelve (Tuesday evening small group meeting) is the most well attended.The elders meet for prayer every two weeks and there are several informal gatherings of people who get together and talk and read the Bible and pray.

Last night we gathered together for prayer at the church, while the children’s programme went ahead downstairs and the Arab church worshipped in the sanctuary. Both those groups had far more people than gathered for prayer. Probably the other group meeting for prayer had more than we had. There were two of us.  Just a lady from the church and me. There would have been more, but our Associate and his wife, Hassan and Kathy, are in Louisville Kentucky for some small gathering themselves.(For you uninitiated – the meeting Kathy and Hassan are at is currently clocked at 8000 in attendance)

So the two of us talked and then we read some Scripture and went through the prayer list and prayed. She went first (the pastor always goes last – that way we know when it’s over).

“Thank you Lord that there are only two of us here tonight so that I can talk to my pastor and get some help”. I don’t remember much else of her prayer. It was enough for me to hear that. While I was secretly licking my wounds for being in a prayer meeting where only two showed up, half of them me, and wondering if the glory had departed and inwardly asking if I am the reason for this kind of turnout, my prayer partner was rejoicing that God had orchestrated the meeting in such a way that she could do a little unloading without the embarrassment of having others get in on what was being said.

Thank you Lord, for putting me in a meeting last night where you helped one of your children and did it using me. And thank you for teaching me, through her, what really matters.