A prayer movement is building around the world and exciting things are happening.
And it's all because of God.
One of the really heartening stories is the unlikely birth and growth of the 24-7 prayer rooms which sprang from a vision a carefree young British student - Pete Greig - had in Portugal one night.
In his book Red Moon Rising, Greig says he and a friend were hitchhiking along the coast of Portugal's Algarve after graduating from university and decided to camp on Cape St. Vincent one night.
Unable to sleep, Greig got out of his sleeping bag, looked out over the ocean at the star-filled skies, and had an extraordinary vision. He imagined the nations in Europe, began praying for them by name, and as he prayed something like an electric current passed through him.
He began to see these nations as in an atlas and "I watched as young people arose out of the page, crowds of them in every nation, a mysterious, faceless army silently awaiting orders".
This vision changed Grieg and the direction of his life. He did not really understand what it meant. But he began a quest to find out.
His search began among young druggies, skinheads, and homeless youth in Chichester near London in the late 1990s. He became involved in an unusual church that grew out of this motley crew. These young people became turned-on to Jesus in the midst of their messy lives.
But Greig felt dissatisfaction within himself and spent some time asking God what he wanted of him. He felt led to pray and he travelled with his wife and son in an old car through Europe.
One night they stopped at Hernhutt in Germany, the home of Count von Zinzendorff, father of the amazing round-the-clock Moravian prayer meeting that lasted a century and led to a major missionary movement and indirectly led to the conversion of John Wesley. Maybe, Greig thought, prayer was what God was asking him to do.
Back home, he and his friends started small - 24-hour-a-day prayer for a month. Then, it continued - people wandering in from the streets and praying in their prayer room in Chichester at all hours of the day and night.
From there, it spread. The movement had a vision of prayer, mission and justice. And right away, Greig and his friends found that God was moving in people throughout Europe in the same way.
News of the Chichester group travelled fast and now tens of thousands of people are praying in prayer rooms around the world - in Europe, North America, Mexico, South America, Asia, Africa.
The wonderful thing is that people who would never go near a church are coming to the Lord through these prayer rooms. They wander in - sometimes simply out of curiosity - and the presence of God overwhelms them.
Pete Greig even thought at one time of closing down the 24-7 prayer efforts, thinking it had gone as far as it could. But he found out quickly that God was in charge - not him. The Spirit had lit a fire that wouldn't go out. Stories and people flooded him from around the world, telling him what God was doing through these 24-7 prayer rooms.
Someone asked Greig what his group's five-year goals were. He replied that he didn't know - God was in control.
"The most amazing thing of all has been the hunger," he writes. "So many people from such different backgrounds just desperate to pray. We've never tried to persuade anyone to open a prayer room. People just do!"
You can't force people to pray, he says.
"But when thousands of people all over the world spontaneously develop such a longing for God's presence that they will rise in the night and sacrifice food, such a hunger comes from God alone."
May that hunger spread to me and to many more around the world.
And it's all because of God.
One of the really heartening stories is the unlikely birth and growth of the 24-7 prayer rooms which sprang from a vision a carefree young British student - Pete Greig - had in Portugal one night.
In his book Red Moon Rising, Greig says he and a friend were hitchhiking along the coast of Portugal's Algarve after graduating from university and decided to camp on Cape St. Vincent one night.
Unable to sleep, Greig got out of his sleeping bag, looked out over the ocean at the star-filled skies, and had an extraordinary vision. He imagined the nations in Europe, began praying for them by name, and as he prayed something like an electric current passed through him.
He began to see these nations as in an atlas and "I watched as young people arose out of the page, crowds of them in every nation, a mysterious, faceless army silently awaiting orders".
This vision changed Grieg and the direction of his life. He did not really understand what it meant. But he began a quest to find out.
His search began among young druggies, skinheads, and homeless youth in Chichester near London in the late 1990s. He became involved in an unusual church that grew out of this motley crew. These young people became turned-on to Jesus in the midst of their messy lives.
But Greig felt dissatisfaction within himself and spent some time asking God what he wanted of him. He felt led to pray and he travelled with his wife and son in an old car through Europe.
One night they stopped at Hernhutt in Germany, the home of Count von Zinzendorff, father of the amazing round-the-clock Moravian prayer meeting that lasted a century and led to a major missionary movement and indirectly led to the conversion of John Wesley. Maybe, Greig thought, prayer was what God was asking him to do.
Back home, he and his friends started small - 24-hour-a-day prayer for a month. Then, it continued - people wandering in from the streets and praying in their prayer room in Chichester at all hours of the day and night.
From there, it spread. The movement had a vision of prayer, mission and justice. And right away, Greig and his friends found that God was moving in people throughout Europe in the same way.
News of the Chichester group travelled fast and now tens of thousands of people are praying in prayer rooms around the world - in Europe, North America, Mexico, South America, Asia, Africa.
The wonderful thing is that people who would never go near a church are coming to the Lord through these prayer rooms. They wander in - sometimes simply out of curiosity - and the presence of God overwhelms them.
Pete Greig even thought at one time of closing down the 24-7 prayer efforts, thinking it had gone as far as it could. But he found out quickly that God was in charge - not him. The Spirit had lit a fire that wouldn't go out. Stories and people flooded him from around the world, telling him what God was doing through these 24-7 prayer rooms.
Someone asked Greig what his group's five-year goals were. He replied that he didn't know - God was in control.
"The most amazing thing of all has been the hunger," he writes. "So many people from such different backgrounds just desperate to pray. We've never tried to persuade anyone to open a prayer room. People just do!"
You can't force people to pray, he says.
"But when thousands of people all over the world spontaneously develop such a longing for God's presence that they will rise in the night and sacrifice food, such a hunger comes from God alone."
May that hunger spread to me and to many more around the world.
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