“Praying at Mt. Hermon AME”

“Praying at Mt.  Hermon  AME”

By Pastor Rasheed  Z. Baaith

 “In thee, O LORD, do I hope; thou wilt hear, O LORD My God.”  (Psalm 38:15) 

Last Wednesday evening, under the inspiration of Pastor Henry F. Green of Mt. Hermon AME Church and the leadership of Westside Gazette Publisher, Bobby Henry, Sr., leaders, pastors, elected officials and members of our community came together.

They came to offer up the one thing the world and we need more than anything else: prayer.  Those in attendance came to pray for our daughters in Nigeria who had been kidnapped because they had the desire to become educated women. And kidnapped because of their religious faith.

These were daughters we had neither beget nor begotten and none of us had met these daughters.  We had not ever heard their voices, or looked into their eyes or shared laughter with them. Yet, despite all of that it was evident to those who came that we loved these children and our hearts were torn by the uncertainty of what may be happening to them.

We recognized that while we could not lead a military rescue operation to bring them home or guide diplomatic efforts to gain their release, the one thing we could do was to pray.  And so we did.  Christ taught us by His example in His greatest moment of crisis to pray. He prayed so powerfully and so passionately He sweated blood.

And while we did not sweat blood, those who came prayed as powerfully and as sincerely as they could.  The atmosphere was charged with the Presence of the Holy Spirit. He was there because those prayers compelled Him to be there.

The Lord tells us to call upon Him in our day of trouble and He will be there. (Psa. 50:14)  This is indeed a day of trouble. We called and He came.

The church was over flowing but it was not full. It was over flowing with love, compassion, determination and hope but the seats were not full. Sadly, this is often the case with us in days of trouble. A committed few come to do all they can for the rest of us who have decided our social life, or our television time is more important that our community involvement. Bobby Henry,” said in his remarks that everybody who was supposed to be there was there. None the less, I would hope more would want to be in that number.”

We have witnessed what happens when the majority of us pulls together to make amendments in our reality. We are able to change the direction of society, or elect Presidents.   But the will for collective effort seems short lived with us.”

Still I have hope because of what happened at Mt. Hermon. Ask yourself what would happen if we came together like that more often, if we didn’t wait for a crisis to move us, if we came before the Lord for other issues of the day? Who would the Lord help us move? What could we change?

There is of course only one way to find out. Pastor Green and Bobby Henry need to summon us again. And again and again. But even more when the summons comes, we all need to answer it.