Show me Your ways, O LORD, teach me Your paths.  Guide me in Your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in You all day long.        (Psalm 25:4-5)

My dog, a collie named Buckeye, walks with me every day.  I have trained him to walk well on a leash, not running ahead or lagging behind.  When he is obeying well, he walks with his head close by my knee, keeping pace with me, looking up at me to see if I am pleased with him.  I use the leash to guide him and, when he misbehaves, to draw him back close to me and correct him. This analogy frequently occurs to me as we walk:  Buckeye is to me, his master, as I am to the supreme Master.  As I train Buckeye, God trains me.  The verses quoted above support this analogy.  The Hebrew word translated teach carries the sense of training, disciplining, even chastising.  The leash the Lord uses to keep me close and train me is frequently prayer.  It is usually during my prayer time that He shows me how I have been running ahead of Him or lagging behind Him, distracted by some temporal enticement.  I yearn for the times in prayer when He smiles His approval and pleasure on me.  May all of us walk in obedience this week, connected by our prayer-leashes to the Master!
 
Here are some prayer ingredients for this week:
 
1.  Cheryl Sissom asks for prayer for her aunt, with whom she is very close.  Beverly recently underwent surgery for advanced peritoneal cancer and is now receiving chemo treatments.  She is a believer.  Cheryl asks that we pray for healing, peace, and wisdom as God uses Beverly’s circumstances for His glory.  Beverly’s extended family members who do not know the Lord are devastated by her diagnosis.
 
2.  All of you received a thank you card from Karen Marvel last week.  She wrote, “Thank you all for keeping me in your prayers.  I do cherish all of them as I do all of you!”  Praise the Lord for a church in which intercessory prayer builds relationship, and continue to pray for Karen as she lives with long-term health problems.
 
3.  Pray for our nation, for California, and for your local community as we elect leaders and decide issues onElection Day.
 
4.  Wasn’t the rain a wonderful blessing?  I heard this predictable comment in a radio report on Saturday:      “… but it’s just a drop in a very empty bucket.”  Even as we acknowledge that drought conditions still exist in California, let’s remember to thank the Giver of all good gifts for the rain we did receive.
 
5.  Praise the Lord for a successful FunFest last Friday night.  It seemed to me that about a third of the crowd was not from Calvary.  Pray that the unbelievers among our guests will be drawn back to Calvary on a Sunday morning.
 
6.  Pray for courage to do what’s right.  What hard or scary thing is God calling you to do? 
 
7.  Lift up Tomasz Chylka’s church in Pszczyna, Poland.  Pastor Dave shared yesterday that church members contribute nothing to support their pastor.  Pray that they will receive and obey God’s instructions about giving to support the “overhead” of the church. 

In Christ,
Carol Gilbert, Prayer Chair
Calvary Community Church of Brea