Hurricane Dorian is still moving up the Florida coast some 135 miles off of it…deciding if it wants to be a problem or not.

So I will pray that it goes out and plays with the fish, rather than with the people of Florida and parts of Georgia.

Yes. I will pray. I will pray as I did for the victims of Sandy Hook, the synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh and San Diegp, the recent shootings.

I will pray because “the prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16b).

I learned this lesson in a way I did not expect. My senior year in HS, we had several classmates die. When one, whom I always liked, died in a car accident, I went and talked to my wind ensemble director. I told him how troubled I was over the death. (My father had died in a car accident some 15 months earlier). I wanted to do something to help the family. My teacher, (not a Lutheran, but DEFINITELY a Christian), said I could always pray for them. The reasoning was: When you think you can’t do anything to help someone, you can always still pray for them.

And this in a public school!

That lesson is both correct and one that has always stayed with me. Those who knock Christians for praying for those suffering in those awful news stories because, well, it seems like we can’t do a whole lot more, are probably not doing nearly as much as the Christian who prays.

And so I pray. For those in the wake of Dorian, for those in Odessa, for those still suffering over the recent shootings, I pray. Please don’t hear this as me glorifying myself. I feel it’s the best thing I can do. Everything that’s out of my control, well, I can still pray for it.

All I ask is that you pray with me. And don’t let other tell you it’s a waste of time. The Bible says otherwise.

Please pray for all these things.