Welcome to the Nehemiah Network list of current prayer requests and praises. The Nehemiah Network is a committed group of prayer partners who pray for SPU's needs. Please join us.

Current Prayer Requests and Praises

Please pray for...

1. Restoration in Iraq
Pray for all of our troops, their families, the people of Iraq, and wisdom on the part of our President and national leaders, as we continue to fight to liberate the people of Iraq. Specifically pray for the SPU staff, parents and alumni who are in the military, have been called up for active duty and/or have loved ones called up for active duty and for their safe return and for their adjustment back into civilian life, during this time of war. A student who most recently has been deployed to Iraq and could use your prayer is David Elliot, a junior at SPU. David is majoring in history and is currently in the SOE Certification Program.

Campus Issues

Institute of Education Sciences
Focus on cognition and student learning research.

Herbert B. Jones Foundation
Focus on entrepreneurship program in the School of Business and Economics.

National Science Foundation
Several proposals with various focuses for our Biology and Physics departments as well as the School of Psychology, Family & Community & Physics departments.

Submission to the Nehemiah Network:

Items published via the Nehemiah Network are submitted by email to Sig Swanstrom sswanstrom@spu.edu. Published prayer requests relate directly to the mission of SPU, or a member of the SPU on-campus community of students, faculty, staff or their immediate families. Other prayer requests received, though not published, are nevertheless presented to the members of the Nehemiah Network cadre for prayer. This prayer support cadre meets on campus, and is open to anyone willing to be a regular participant. All prayer requests are reviewed and edited before posting. Some, due to sensitivity, remain private, or the names omitted or changed, to maintain the privacy of individuals.

Devotional

Let the River Flow
by G. Roger Schoenhals '61

"The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O Lord, endures forever -- do not abandon the works of your hands." (Psa 138:8)

In the '70s when I was working as an editorial director of a church-related publishing house in Indiana, I was under a lot of pressure -- multiple deadlines, scant salary, and personal embattlements. A friend of mine, a river guide, invited me to float with him on a private trip down the Green River through Canyonlands National Park. How wonderful to get away for a week or so, away from the relentless and grinding pressures of my work. My wife, too, thought it would be good for me. (She's so smart!)

We met at Moab, Utah and drove to the launch site. The third night on the river, we stopped at a place once inhabited by the Anasazzi Indians a thousand years before. Cliff dwellings lined the side of the canyon wall. Near the beached raft was an ancient stone hut forsaken by the same Indians. We rolled out our sleeping bags between the hut and the river.

As we lay on our backs looking up at the Milky Way, we talked about experiences of the day, but only momentarily as my friend soon fell fast asleep. But with eyes wide open, I continued to stare at the canopy of stars.

I began to rehearse the negatives of my life. I reminded myself of failure, ineffectiveness, shallowness, and lack of spiritual intensity and on and on. All of the pressures and shortcomings of my existence oozed from my anxious mind.

Surely you have experienced such times, occasions when you bad-mouth yourself for what you have not done, who you have not become. Certainly you have known personal discouragement something like I was wrestling with that night beside the river. I suspect even the Psalmist might be alluding to some personal failure, discouragement or doubt as he considers the incompleteness of his life, hoping and praying that God will not abandon him. It is easy to dwell on our shortcomings and talk ourselves into a gloomy state, to let regrets pile up as we look back over the years and see how far we haven't come.

I remember clearly what happened next. Suddenly the eyes of my heart saw what my physical eyes beheld -- the mighty expanding universe of God's creation.

I saw His handiwork, spread out before me in limitless vastness and spectacular glory. I saw the work of His fingers, the majesty of creation, and the awesomeness of His sustaining power.

Then I was mindful of the mighty river 20 yards away, flowing quietly, powerfully, ceaselessly as it cut deeper and deeper into the earth.

And I became aware that I was in the workshop of the Lord God Almighty . . . and He was carving Himself a canyon.

I tell you, something happened to me when all of these thoughts converged. I realized with humbling clarity that God, Creator of heaven and earth, was at work in me, carving Himself a monument of grace . . . and He wasn't in a hurry.

The pressures and tensions and anxieties rolled off me and tumbled into the River to be carried away. I thought of Paul's words to his friends at Philippi, "I am confident that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the Day of Jesus Christ."

Today's verse brings all of these memories back to me. First, there is the grand purpose of God to make us pure and holy like His beloved Son. Second, there is His enduring love, conceiving us before the foundation of the world, dying for us on a sinner's cross, rising for us to enter our lives with wonder-working power and, third, promising us that He will never, ever, abandon us but will continue His work until He presents us faultless before the Throne, clothed in His righteousness alone.

My job, and yours, is to let the River flow. We are to daily keep the channels clear so the Spirit of truth and love can roll through our lives and out into the lives of others. And as we allow the River passage, we will find the steady, patient hand of God carving and shaping us into vessels of even greater value for His use.

So, my friend, cast all your cares on Him. Relax and let the River flow.

. . . Roger
roger@pgtoday.com