A Prayer for the Outsider...

“God, would you continue to hover and cover our community with the protection and affection of your presence?  Would you whisper to them when anything other than a whisper would scare them?  Would you remind them of you love even though they don’t think they need it and aren’t pursuing it as far as they know?  Today I’m praying for the stranger, the outsider, the visitor, the wanderer.

Would you bring someone into their life to bring a smile or a moment of eye contact that awakens their created longing for community and friendship?  Would you stir up within them a desire for more than just making it through another day?  Would you speak through the shows they’re watching or the music they’re listening to…simple phrases or words that prompt and surface longing…deeper longing.  Let the sunset speak a beauty to their heart like it hasn’t for a long time and may the glory of creation preach of your existence and better yet, your presence. 

You love our community more than I ever could, but don’t let that stop me or your church from showing love, as broken and fumbled as it may be.  May we make an attempt at being your body in a world dying to see you move in a real way.  Would you ordain divine encounters between people that change the trajectory of their lives?  Will you cause people to rub shoulders with people of hope, “yes” people that see the potential and not just the problems?  Would you do that?  For the outsiders and strangers who wouldn’t think of stepping foot in a church.  Please.

I know this is a lot to ask, but would you show up in their dreams as they settle into a deep sleep.  Would you reveal yourself through visions and signs that they would never be open to seeing in a woken state?  Would you cause them to roll out of bed in the morning with a nagging need or a sneaky suspicion that they weren’t contemplating the night before?  Would you remind them of childhood desires before this cruel world ran over them and left them for dead?  Would you target unhealed wounds that make them resist closeness to anything or anyone?  So many can’t imagine opening themselves to something new when they are nursing deep hurt from the past…so by Your Spirit could you go to that place and bring miraculous healing.  For the distant acquaintance, the passerby, the ones that I walk past every day.  For the world you love.

Speaking of healing, I’m asking for you to intervene because of my intercession and heal the nagging physical ailments that make in nearly impossible to concentrate on anything other than their own pain.  I don’t know how you do that, but I ask for you to move throughout our community bringing relief to people in their beds, chairs, porches, living rooms, and bathrooms.  If Satan is using chronic discomfort to distract them from truth, send him packing and release them from his paralyzing grip.  Whatever he is using to vex them or choke them, cast it out in Your mighty Name.  Let them experience freedom and deliverance, sweet Jesus.  All over this community.  I’m coming on behalf of the future guest, the potential visitor, the eventual visitor who will frequent our church, the outsider who will want to come inside and be a part of the beautiful and broken body of Christ.  I pray for them today.

You can do anything you want.  Nothing is impossible for you.  Nothing is outside your capability and certainly nothing is beneath you.  You care about every intimate detail in every single life in our community and today I’m asking for “salvation to spring up from the ground” as it says in Isaiah.  May it burst forth in ways that are undeniable and irresistible.  For the world’s good and for Your glory.  Amen.”