I have two ways I drive to work. The quick way, on the highway, takes about 20 minutes or so. The slower way, takes some back roads and will take about 40 minutes. I usually take the slower way. I prefer to drive at my leisure and unless I’m running late for work, I’ll go the slower way.
Often I’ll spend my extra time driving, listening to the news or listening to Christian radio. Some days I’ll start the drive with a little quiet time that I use for my personal prayer time. It’s great one on one time with God. I tried something different the other day which made an amazing difference in my day that I’ll come back to in a moment. But first, let me digress.
At the beginning of 2017 our church made known their God Dream. This dream is that over the next seven years, we will send a missionary to every street and a missional community to every neighborhood in our county. For years we’ve known that there is a 100,000 unreached people in our county (that number has always been a bit of a guess obviously, but the truth of the matter is there are a lot in a small area.) We live in communities with many people who don’t know the love of Christ. We may be neighbors to those who have never truly heard the gospel of Christ or if they have, they’ve fallen away for one reason or the other.
Where the word of God goes, everything lives. This is taken from Ezekiel 47:9 which says, “so where the river flows everything will live.” When the Holy Spirit came down live among us and in us, it flowed out like a mighty river to fill the world. We as Christians have the living water in us and it can overflow out of us into the streets and neighborhoods bringing new life.
I’ve talked about who are neighbor is before, it can be our physical neighbors, it can be our friends and family, it can be the people we work with, or it can be the clerks at the grocery store that we see every time we’re there. Any of them can be trapped in spiritual darkness and we may not even realize it. We as Christians, can shine our light of hope into their darkness. Show the life of fullness that can only come through Jesus Christ.
But how can we do that? Well one way the church has come up with is the initiative called Bless, Eat, Pray. This initiative encourages us to bless someone each week, to share a meal with someone each week and to pray for someone each week. Essentially to love the people that God has put into our lives.
Well back to my original point about my prayer time as I drive. One of the ways that the church shared for handling the prayer part of Bless, Eat, Pray, was to do a prayer walk. To essentially walk around your neighborhood, praying over the houses as you walk by. Pretty simple. I unfortunately live in a very rural area where I don’t have a ton of neighbors nor good places to walk, especially now in the winter.
So the other day, I thought, why don’t I just pray for my neighbors as I drive pass their houses on the way to work. So I did that. I prayed as I was felt led for the various houses as I drove down my road. Some I knew who lived there, others I didn’t. But I prayed for them anyway.
As I drove out of what I would consider my neighborhood, I continued to pray. For those houses I may have passed, or perhaps someone driving past me or coming out of a side street. I prayed for those I saw working at the McDonalds I drove past. I was able to pray for the poor and the wealthy. I just let the Holy Spirit guide me on who I was praying for that day.
What an awesome drive that was. By the time I got to work, I felt so full of the Spirit that I’m sure it overflowed as I went about my day as my spirit felt full of love. I honestly can’t wait for Monday, so I can drive to work again. I find myself thinking of other ways to drive so that I can pass through different areas so I can pray for them too. My wife and I like to go for drives just to spend time together and I feel this could be a nice addition to our drives as we pray over those we pass.
So that is my prayer drive. Something very practical and easy. I can’t imagine how God could move if all Christians in my small county in Ohio would pray as we drove to work each day. How could this small thing change the world. Start this in your area, just pray for those you pass or interact with each day. It can be a simple prayer asking God to bless that person today. God knows what their needs are even when we don’t. But prayer is a powerful thing. Not only can it bless the person being prayed for, but it blesses the person doing the praying. Try it once and you’ll see what I mean.
Exceptional Christian 