This week we will continue our prayer walk around the gates and walls of our hearts and homes. Today we take our prayer walk to the East Gate. It is located on the eastern side of Jerusalem, opposite the temple area and facing the rising sun.
What does the East Gate tell us? The East Gate speaks of hope because it faces the sunrise. The sunrise speaks of the daily reminder that God's mercy is new every morning.
During the prayer gathering, when we presented this aspect of the gate-restoration project to the Urban Life family, we displayed a picture of the sunrise as it appears at the East Gate. Sunrise at the East Gate was a daily reminder that a new day is always coming. No matter how difficult and dark life might be right now, morning is coming.
This gate is obviously in ruins in many lives because of the hopelessness that is growing throughout our nation. Hopelessness is the source of a lot of despair and fatalistic behavior in America today. Many families seem to have no ability to cope with the trials of life. They have no East Gate. They have no hope.
Here are three scriptures that express the HOPE that is revealed by the East Gate:
Psalm 30:5 (NKJV) reads: For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.
Psalm 42:5 reads:
Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him For the help of His countenance.
Psalm 146:5 reads:
Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, Whose hope is in the LORD his God,
When we first gathered to pray about the East Gate, we rehearsed the words to a popular Broadway tune from a musical called Annie.
The lyrics are:
The sun will come out tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow
There'll be sun
Just thinkin' about tomorrow
Clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow 'til there's none
When I'm stuck with a day that's grey and lonely
I just stick up my chin and grin and say, oh
The sun will come out tomorrow
So you gotta hang on 'til tomorrow, come what may!
Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow
You're always a day away!
SONGWRITERS: CHARLES STROUSE; MARTIN CHARNIN
PUBLISHED BY: CHARLES STROUSE PUBLISHING;EDWIN H. MORRIS & CO., A DIV. OF MPL COMMUNICATIONS, INC.
A more spiritual song to express the East Gate is this well-known tune:
God will make a way
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me
He will be my guide
Hold me closely to His side
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way, He will make a way
SONGWRITER: DONALD JAMES MOEN
PUBLISHED BY: INTEGRITY'S HOSANNA! MUSIC
When we shared these lyrics with the Urban Life family, I began to weep because much of my life, as an inner city youth, was filled with hopelessness. I was the most pessimistic person you could ever have met. Since I was born into a grief-stricken household, sadness and sorrow were part of the core of my being.
For Carol, after her parents split up, she had very little hope or expectations for life to ever get any better. Through the years, the East Gate was eventually built and established in our lives; especially in our marriage. Today we know, first-hand, why this gate must be built in our families. The EAST GATE is where Godly hope and expectation is established in our hearts and homes.
---Chris and Carol Green
