Thought for Day -Monday 14 June

  Philippians 4:6-7 (New Living Translation) 6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. I have seen many comments on social media recently about the foolishness of believing in God.  There is less evidence of people doing God’s work these days.  Many years ago, (well around 35-40) if you went on a night out, it was normal to have the Salvation Army coming into the pub, club or hotel at some point selling their newspaper, the ‘War Cry’.  We would see Christian missions on the busier beaches in Scotland and England throughout the summer months.  We would see a substantial turn out at any parades by our youth organisations, Churches were a lot better attended on a Sunday morning, so were Sunday Schools and Bible classes and Youth Fellowships.  There was more evidence of God’s work in society in those days but since that time, there has been a steady reduction of those things mentioned.  The church still exists and is doing terrific work all over the world but there is a lack of young believers coming in that would ensure a healthy future for our church in the years and decades to come and it is concerning. Despite this decline and the speculation about the relevance of Christianity in today’s society, I found the reaction to the collapse of the Danish football player (captured live by television) fairly interesting.  When supporters realised the gravity of the situation which looked like the player may be dying, many could be seen turning to prayer.  It was not just the older ones but supporters of all ages were praying and asking God to come to the aid of the seriously ill player. The cynical among us could speculate that many of these supporters that were going through the motions of praying would seldom, if ever, see the inside of a church but prayer, for some reason, seemed the right thing for them to do at that time and who can possibly doubt the sincerity of that act?  Apart from that, their prayers were indeed answered when the news was conveyed that Christian Eriksen was going to be ok.  Maybe this was down to the skill of the medics who attended him, maybe it was the power of prayer or maybe a bit of both.   It might also be worth noting that this serious heart problem had not been detected by the eminent physicians employed by his club in Italy prior to the tournament which suggests to me that the power of prayer made the difference.  Could it be that God picked that time to speak to these men and women via that dramatic incident witnessed by millions?  Many times when we pray, it is to ask God for something we need but what many witnessed on Saturday past was many people praying for someone else and, for a little while, forgetting what they themselves needed or wished for and I thought that was worth reflecting upon.                                   Prayer Heavenly Father, we thank you for being there for us to turn to in the times of need that we all experience throughout our lives in this world.  We thank you for the medium of prayer which, despite being used by mankind to communicate with you over thousands of years never becomes outdated.  Remind us to use this medium to offer our thanks to you as well as make our requests to you and to pray for others as well as ourselves.  Amen