DAY OFF
Week five. You have now covered a lot of ground on this journey.
How are the times with God going?
“It’s not the dramatic answers to prayer, but the quiet awareness of doing something I always meant to do with God” (from a previous 40 Day pray-er.)
This was all about ‘restoring.’ How has this affected you? Is there one thing that stands out?
Ideas
Restoring initiative was a topic this week. Here are some suggestions:
* Have a conversation with someone who is different from you – older, younger. Do something out of the ordinary for a person you know – make a drink for them, plant some bulbs in pots and distribute them, tidy someone’s garden or even your own!
* Go you could clean something up. Leave the room, toilet, hall, street, etc. tidier than when you went in to it.
Saxony 1727
The Moravians officially established their community in 1457. yet for 250 years, they had suffered intense persecution for their beliefs until 1722 when Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf, a man of deep faith, invited them to refuge on his estate. These asylum seekers came from Czechoslovakia and Bohemia to a village called Herrnhut in Saxony. Zinzendorf, the de facto leader of this group, was disturbed by the tension and had been praying with key community leaders about it.
Prayer started in august and on august 13, 1727 the whole community assembled for a communion service, and in that service, the entire body felt the presence of the Holy Spirit, leading them to beg forgiveness of one another and weep and seek reconciliation. Something happened to the Moravians during that service – they were transformed from being a disparate bunch of refugees into an excited band of disciples, ready for any task. Count Zinzendorf looked upon that day as “a day of the outpourings of the Holy Spirit upon the congregation; it was its Pentecost.”
Within two weeks, twenty-four men and twenty-four women of the community covenanted together to spend one hour each day, day and night, in prayer to God for His blessing on the congregation and its witness. For over 100 years, members of the Moravian church continued non-stop in this “Hourly Intercession.” Like the first Pentecost, men and women would move forth with the gospel from Herrnhut to the uttermost parts of the earth. all Moravian adventures were begun, surrounded, and consummated in prayer. They became known as “God’s Happy People,” establishing missions and churches around the world and having a key role in the life of John Wesley among others.