Covering Fire

Spring break has come at last! We now sit in the middle of a time of rest which we have no doubt waited a long time for. We as a BCM have scattered to the four winds it seems.

I am very fond of the spring break trips we as a campus ministry continue to organize every year. My freshman year, I spent my first real mission trip with the then BSU in Bay St. Lous. I was challenged in ways I hadn't yet dreamed of and built some strong friendships that continue to this day. Last year also I spent spring break with the BCM in the Road Trip group where we served and fellowshipped both locally and abroad. The appalachian trail was particularly inspiring.

This year, three groups of people in particular come to mind. We have sent out three spring break groups:

Beach Reach in Panama City
Asheville
Numbered which is traveling all over the place

And now as we are scatted, I feel, it is time to broach the subject of prayer.

Perhaps you are like me in that you have had difficulty in committing to pray for people. I know there have been more than one occasion in my life when, emotionally stirred by a sermon or message, I made some committment to pray for missionaries over seas or a divine work in foreign lands. Of course, these commitments have often fallen flat.

But that isn't time to kick ourselves for forgetting to pray in the past.

It is these poignant times that I often think of prayer as a sort of "covering fire" we can give to our brothers and sisters. Not everyone may make the charge into enemy territory or at least, not in the same place. There comes a time to support our fellows from a distance. Though we may not be able to stand side by side with each other this week, we can pray for each other, whether we are serving on the beach, travelling from Tennessee to Alabama, or merely spending time away from being busy.

I don't ask for a commitment to pray every day or a promise that may or may not be kept. I only ask that you pray. Go ahead and do it now (why wait?). Pray that God will do a mighty work, keep his people safe, and grow us all this week. If you've got time, spend some time in quiet. If you don't, just pray as you go. Pray again as you remember.

I look forward to hearing the stories when we return. But don't think that the time to pray for each other belongs only to one week in the spring when school is off. Maybe, just maybe, we can keep up the covering fire when the spring break has long passed.