Why prayer in these days matters

This is an extract from the latest pastoral letter from Jerry Middleton, minister of Gilcomston South Church in Aberdeen. You will not be surprised to know he is writing about Covid-19 and setting down what he calls markers to guide Christians in their response to this virus and all that it continues into bring to our world. He has 7 of them - they all begin with P - Perspective, Prayer, Planning, Protection, Provision, Poverty, Proclamation - but I must admit it was what he said about the second of these - namely our responsibility to pray that spoke to me & so I reproduce it here below. If you would like to read the whole letter you can find it here

Prayer. 
Our primary calling as the people of God - indeed our primary responsibility - is to pray. From day 1 of the life of the church, when Peter picked up on the words of the prophet Joel, it’s clear that we are as God’s people in a very real sense a ‘prophetic people’: “I will pour out My Spirit in those days and they will prophesy” (Acts 2.17-18).


And what do prophets do? They pray. The very first time that the word ‘prophet’ is used in Scripture, that’s what we find the guy doing. Praying. “He is a prophet,” God said to the king of Gerar about Abraham: “he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live” (Gen.20.7).


Let’s never lose sight of that calling. A prophet. He’ll pray: you’ll live.


Our primary calling is not to be throwing in our tuppence-worth as to the rights and wrongs of what we should be doing in these days: not to be up in arms about who knows just what, but down on our knees in prayer.


There are all sorts of ways in which all sorts of people can play their part in securing the common good at a time like this. But who has access to the King? Who can draw near to the One who alone can save and plead the cause of a nation? Who (as the Lord Himself once asked through His servant, the prophet Ezekiel) will build up the wall and stand in the gap on behalf of the land? That’s our privileged calling as the people of God. Prophets who’ll pray; and others will live.


That’s what the well-known passage in 2 Chronicles 7.14 is on about. Most Christians know the verse as the “If My people ..” verse: we’re perhaps not quite as familiar with the context, which has everything to do with the present crisis - “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain (it’s the Lord who is speaking) or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people …” .
That’s the context in which this well-known verse kicks in: “If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” And you’ll see it’s not just an exhortation to make sure we’re saying our prayers. It’s prayer characterized by our humbling ourselves, by our seeking God’s face, and by our turning from our wicked ways.


If I write most fully on this, it’s because it’s surely the most important ‘marker’ of all. Scientific ‘modelling’ is doubtless very helpful: but the Lord is well able to stop a plague in its tracks. We’re called to be ‘prophets’. We’re to pray, that others may live. 

May God yet come in healing grace and power.