Last night I “happened” to read this verse. Paul writing to the followers of The Way in the Macedonian city of Thessalonika (incidentally so named after the sister of Alexander the Great) spoke by the Spirit and said, “With this in mind, we always pray that our God will make you worthy of his call. We also pray that through {his} power he will help you accomplish every good desire and help you do everything your faith produces” (2 Thessalonians 1:11 God’s Word).

Many things flooded into my mind when these words touched my eyes.

English: The map of Second Epistle to the Thes...

Map of Greece showing Thessalonika (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Paul, Silas and Timothy prayed for those believers that God would do a work in them that would make them “worthy” of God’s mission. That might include suffering (2 Thessalonians 1:4-5). We rush to avoid suffering, and often mistreat those who suffer claiming they lack faith. Hogwash (or sheep dip if you are sensitive to the Old Testament dietary laws)! The greater the life of faith the greater likelihood for suffering. Salvation is one thing, but what follows for the follower is a life of faithfully living out faith as an agent of Good News.

The prayer also promotes the help of God for believers to have good desires (Philippians 4:8) and turn them from ideas to accomplishments. It makes the notion of worthless thoughts even more, well, worthless.

And the next thing on their prayer list suggests faith germinates mission, purpose and “to-do’s” which require “doing”.

And so now we have a pattern for prayer for faithful followers.

Let’s pray that way for people of The Way.

Way to go!

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