Praying Around the Globe
Sometimes access to instant global news can be overwhelming. Before even all of the facts are known, stories are disseminated, reacted to, and assessed. There is a great deal that could make our hearts anxious – if we let it.
This week, I suggest picturing a globe when you pray. If you have one in your home, pick it up, spin it. The good news is that there is no place on the face of the earth where we can hide from the presence of God.
Now move the globe, and look at it from different angles. Are you tempted to start from the place you call home? Spin it a little and picture life from one of the other chunks of earth. Look at Asia and Australia, Antarctica and Africa, Europe, South America and North America. On at least six of those seven continents – I can’t speak for Antarctica – there are not only Christian fellowships gathering and worshiping, there are Wesleyan Methodist Christian fellowships.
When you pray, start anywhere on the globe. Spin it and stop it with your finger randomly if you want. Pray for our sisters and brothers in the faith wherever you start. And continue around the globe. Let your eyes wander to places you’ve never heard of, or cities you can’t pronounce. Ask God to be at work in those places. When you’ve prayed around the world, turn the globe so you can see your home region. Picture a map being zoomed in around your house or flat, and pray for God to be at work in your neighborhood, your street, your home.
And then, wherever you are, look up – towards your ceiling, towards the sky, and pray for God to be at work in the International Space Station orbiting over earth, astronauts looking down at our nighttime city lights – because after all, not all humans live on earth now! As John Wesley said, “the world [cosmos?] is my parish.”
Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you. – Psalm 139:7-12