Enable Us By Your Power, Lord

ENABLE US BY YOUR POWER, LORD

a prayer to open

Holy Spirit, come. Center my heart.

Fill my mind. Guide my steps.

Peter and John returned to the other believers and told them what the leading priests and elders had said. . . . All the believers lifted their voices together in prayer to God: “O Sovereign Lord, Creator of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them—you spoke long ago by the Holy Spirit through our ancestor David, your servant, saying,

‘Why were the nations so angry?

Why did they waste their time with futile plans?

The kings of the earth prepared for battle;

the rulers gathered together

against the LORD

and against his Messiah.’

“In fact, this has happened here in this very city! For Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate the governor, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were all united against Jesus, your holy servant, whom you anointed. But everything they did was determined beforehand according to your will. And now, O Lord, hear their threats, and give us, your servants, great boldness in preaching your word. Stretch out your hand with healing power; may miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

After this prayer, the meeting place shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the word of God with boldness.

This passage gives us a powerful example of how we might pray when our circumstances overwhelm us. Jesus had told the disciples that they would spread the gospel to the ends of the earth, but then they were arrested before even getting out of Jerusalem. How discouraged and disappointed they must have felt. But instead of giving up, they prayed, acknowledging to God and to each other God’s sovereignty and power, reminding themselves with the words of Psalm 2 that opposition was to be expected, and asking God to enable them to do what Jesus had called them to do. Their prayer caused the building in which they met to shake, and God responded with a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit and grace.

• Read this passage again. What word or phrase stands out to you? Sit quietly, reminding yourself that you are in God’s loving presence, and ask him to show you how that word or phrase connects to your life.
• Reflect on the last time you felt disappointed by something. What caused your disappointment? How did you respond?
• What circumstances do you find yourself in now that are discouraging or disappointing? Write out a prayer like the one the disciples used—not because the words are magic, but as a way to remember who God is, to remind yourself of the reality of life in a broken world, and to ask for the provision to carry out all that God has asked you to be and do.

Use the prayer you wrote out as your way of responding today.