prayer nation: from abstract nation to real people.

I recently begun, along with a community of friends, a commitment to pray a whole year for Nigeria in hopes of aligning the divine will with our own intentions for this young nation and then to pray along the lines of her destiny and not merely the wishful think of her potential.
It has been a unique challenge. For one, praying daily outside the scope of your immediate concerns is always a task. The pressure of work, the depression of urban life and the fun of living or just the haziness of rest, all contribute to days of imperfection where I could barely utter a sentence of prayer.
The problem, I realized, was that I was praying in abstract, for things I could not feel or issues I had no life-experience about. The solution is this: to pray for real lives and not an abstract nation, to locate the national problem within the individual struggle. Part of the golden rule is: “love your neighbor as you love yourself.” It is far more useful, I find, to start your prayers at the most intimate level of your own troubles and then to realize that around the country, maybe even just around the corner, there are those with similar burdens to bear. It will spread out like this: the private prayers becoming of pubic relevance, the individual bonding within the community, fighting a battle to save others like him, knowing that he is just a step ahead or step behind similar dangers.
This is how we can move from an abstract notion of a nation bedeviled by differences to the full notion of a nation of “people like us”. This is our future. Limited by common problems we will find uncommon solutions, bearing each other’s burdens we will find the load lighter and shared. Is this utopia? Yes it is. But if you do not believe in utopia, the very kingdom of God, then you probably should not consider yourself a person of faith or with faith. The very end and the startling beginning of the Christian story is about utopia. Are we not to seek that kingdom? Is this not the good news?
I ask you to care about yourself deeply. And then spread that care to others. Start with these prayers. Pray for everyone facing what you are facing today. This is the very essence of the people we are to be and the nation we are to build.
Amen.