When do you have family prayers? Have you ever considered that a good time might be after the evening television network news? Or after the morning news? Not only could we pray for our families and friends and local problems then, but we also could bring to the Lord the various crises and events we have just seen portrayed on the screen.

What a difference it might make if each day, as newscasts conclude, a great wave of prayer could ascend to God from across the country on behalf of those in trouble and those making trouble!

We could pray by name not only for the individuals involved, but for each newscaster, each commentator.

Sidlow Baxter once said, “Men may spurn our appeal, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons, but they are helpless against our prayers.

“The greater the diameter of our knowledge of human need, the larger will be the circumference of our petitions.”

John Newton, who wrote the well-loved hymn Amazing Grace, also wrote:

“Come, my soul, thy suit prepare,
Jesus loves to answer prayer:
He Himself has bid thee pray,
Therefore will not say thee nay.

Thou art coming to a King,
Large petitions with thee bring;
For His grace and power are such
None can ever ask too much.”

Taken by permission and adapted from “Legacy of a Pack Rat,” By Ruth Bell Graham. ©1989 The Ruth Bell Graham Literary Trust.