A very simple prompt for your prayers today: pray the news. Local or international, front page or editorial page: pray through and for and about the news, knowing that "not one sparrow is forgotten in God's sight; even the hairs on your head are all counted" (Luke 12:6-7). I'm working on my prayer for today at my blog, "Faith and Water." -prompt by Rachel Hackenberg
Oh God! the news is so oppressive.
Those people on the Malaysian airliner: are they crashed? dead? drowned? Hostages somewhere? Political prisoners?
My knowing the specific answer is utterly inconsequential because: You know. You hold every one of those souls in your arms.
The crash of a drunken person's car into a crowd at SXSW in Austin
The dogs abused or neglected who now need care
The children who cannot receive proper food and education as political pawns
The disabled in countries where there are no services for them, but rather stigma and shame and abandonment
Every one of those sparrows, you have your eye on.
And me? Am I in there too, with my first-world problems and hurts and fears?
Help me to trust.