When Women Pray Together

Psalm 34:3 “O Magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together.”

April 27th marks the first anniversary of our Saturday morning Ladies Prayer Meetings! It hardly seems possible that a whole year has gone by.

For those of you that have been able to attend, you can attest to what a sweet time of communion with the Lord and fellowship with one another it has been.

An average of 12 or so ladies meet together on the 4th Saturday of every month for 1 hour (8:30 – 9:30) to worship the Lord and seek His face in prayer.

We begin by meditating on a portion of scripture that emphasizes a particular attribute of God and we begin worshiping the Lord by adoring Him and thanking Him for His unconditional love and faithfulness to us, especially thanking Him for the attribute we are focusing on for that particular Saturday.

We break up into smaller groups where we share our burdens and requests and pray for one another, as well as praying for our pastoral team, our church, our missionaries and the great need of our day…REVIVAL!

Psalm 55:22 “Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you.“

Galatians 6:2  “Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.“

You may ask, “What is prayer”?

Daniel Henderson in his book “On the Prayer God loves to Answer” defines it this way: “Prayer is intimacy with God that leads to the fulfillment of His purposes.” (He credits his professor Alvin Reid with this definition.)  He continues to say, “If all we ever do is seek God’s hand, we may miss His face; but if we seek His face, He will be glad to open His hand and satisfy the deepest desires of our hearts.  God is worthy to be sought.  We start by seeking His face, then we move to His hand, that He may be glorified.”

So what happens when women pray together? Here are just a few blessings:

1.  We experience the sweetness of His presence as we focus on who He is and what He has accomplished for us.  We are drawn heavenward.

2.  There is a camaraderie – a knitting of our hearts together as a result of this time of focusing on the Lord.  Col 2:2 “That their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love…”

3. We are edified as we build one another up.
1 Thess. 5:11 “Wherefore, comfort yourselves together and edify one another, even as also ye do.”

4.   We are sharpened.  Prov. 27:17 “Iron sharpens iron, so a man (woman) sharpens the countenance of his (her) friend.”

5.   We are replenished. Jeremiah 31:25 ESV
“For I will satisfy the weary soul and every languishing soul I will replenish.”

6.  We are refreshed.  Philemon 1:7 ESV “For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my sisters, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.”

7.  We are restored.  PS. 51:12 “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit.”

8.  We are revived.  Ps. 119:50 “This is my comfort in my affliction for thy word hath quickened (revived) me.”

9.  Our faith increases.  As we share and encourage one another, our faith in the Lord is strengthened and increased. Heb. 11:6 “But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.”

10.  Burdens are lifted as we share them and cry out together for God’s intervention for the purpose of displaying His power and His glory. “For with God nothing shall be impossible.” Luke 1:37

As a kid I loved camp…my favorite time of the day was campfire. As campers we learned the skill of building a campfire, gathering tinder, kindling and various sizes of fuel wood, building it in the shape of a tepee, leaving an opening to light the fire and let the air in.  Once the fire was going, it was time to build it up by adding more fuel wood so it would continue to burn.

The song says, “It only takes a spark to get a fire going”….that’s how I feel about our first year of our prayer meetings. We’ve got the fire of prayer going, but we need more ladies to join us to add more fuel to keep the fire going up before God’s throne.

It is our prayer, that by next year, our present meeting place, will be filled to overflowing and we will have to find a larger room. Every revival in the past started with a spark of prayer, then others came along and added fuel to the fire until the Lord was pleased to send revival down.

Isaiah 64:1-4 (NIV)
“O that You would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make Your Name known to Your enemies and cause nations to quake before You. For when You did awesome things that we did not expect You came down and the mountains trembled before You. Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear perceived, no eye seen any God besides You, who acts on behalf of those who wait for Him.”

As we write this, there is a statewide “stay at home” order because of the pandemic.  As a result our March and April prayer meetings have taken place online. We have seen almost triple our numbers, and we’d love to have you join us! Let us use these unprecedented times to cry out to God for revival worldwide!

We have an enemy who is seeking to attack, deceive and destroy us.  His forces will do everything they can to distract us and keep us from praying, because Satan trembles when we pray.  It is a battle. But as ladies, we can rise up, rally, and come together in prayer and link our shields of faith together and stand united against the enemy so that God’s name can be proclaimed throughout the whole world.

Won’t you join us on the fourth Saturday of every month as we cry out together to our Almighty God “Whose hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither His ear heavy that it cannot hear.” Isaiah 59:1

We will be looking for you!

Due to the “stay at home” order we are under, our ladies ministry is holding weekly prayer meetings online through Zoom every Saturday morning at 9:00 AM. If you wish to join us, or if you need help downloading Zoom, please email Heather Jones at heatherj@friendshipraleigh.org to receive an email invite. You do not have to have a Zoom account to participate, but it would be helpful to download the app. (Please note, this works on a smartphone, but performs best on a laptop or tablet.)***