General Shaw and Commissioner Helen Clifton will now not be with us in Melbourne for the 2010 Commissioning events in December.
We will however have as special guests, Chief of the Staff Commissioner Barry Swanson and Commissioner Sue Swanson.
Now tell me that this does not inspire your spirit. From his book, Reality Of Prayer, Bounds says.
“Prayer is no petty invention of man, a fancied relief for fancied ills. Prayer is no dreary performance, dead and death-dealing, but is God’s enabling act for man, living and life-giving, joy and joy-giving. Prayer is the contact of a living soul with God. In prayer, God stoops to kiss man, to bless man, and to aid man in everything that 
God can devise or man can need. Prayer fills man’s emptiness with God’s fullness. It fills man’s poverty with God’s riches. It puts away man’s weakness with God’s strength. It banishes man’s littleness with God’s greatness. Prayer is God’s plan to supply man’s great and continuous need with God’s great and continuous abundance.”
These books are availabale today and they will inspire your heart, mind and soul.
Here is extract from another book by E.M. Bounds called, The Necessity Of Prayer published by Wilder Publishing.
When we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” we are, in a measure, shutting tomorrow out of our prayer. We do not live in tomorrow but in today. We do not seek tomorrow’s grace or tomorrow’s bread. They thrive best, and get most out of life, who live in the living present. They pray best who pray for today’s needs, not for tomorrow’s, which may render our prayers unnecessary and redundant by not existing at all! True prayers are born of present trials and present needs. Bread, for today, is bread enough.
E.M. Bounds was born on the 15th August 1835 and died 24 August 1913. He was an extraordinary man and his books on 
prayer are todays Christian classics.
From his book Purpose In Prayer, he writes.
“The prayers of God’s saints strengthen the unborn generation against the desolating waves of sin and evil.”
There’s a thought you might not have considered before. Prays of the saints strengthens the unborn generation. It makes absolute sense, and so if we worry about the generations to come, then pray for the protecting power of God over them.
Overdose Awareness Day (OAD) is a commemorative occasion; a time to honour the memory of the people we have lost. It gives us an opportunity as a community to acknowledge their loss and offer comfort and support, as well as an opportunity to counter the harmful stigma attached to deaths from overdose. The event also helps us raise awareness about the inherent dangers of drug use and substance abuse and offer information and strategies to avoid overdose.
The use of illegal drugs and legal drugs, such as alcohol and prescription sleeping pills and tranquillisers, can have lifelong consequences and contribute to injuries and death.
Research (below) shows that 18% of Australian deaths from overdose are believed to result from ‘intentional selfharm’. The Salvation Army’s Hope for Life initiative exists to assist people who are struggling to find hope, meaning or peace, or who know someone in that situation.
In 2009, The Salvation Army commissioned a Roy Morgan survey to examine the level of community awareness about suicide. While 80% of survey respondents were not aware of the level of suicide in Australia, more than 64% stated they had known someone who had suicided and 24% were not aware of any community services or organisations that provide support for people who are suicidal.
Many Salvation Army officers and employees work with people who are at risk of suicide, those who have attempted suicide, and individuals and families who have lost loved ones through suicide.
It is our belief that the majority of people who contemplate suicide don’t want to die; they primarily want the pain to stop. As a result, The Salvation Army aims, through corps and social programs, to bring comfort and support and, most importantly, hope and healing to people in desperate need.
Suicide is an issue that impacts all facets of the Australian community. May we all be people who are equipped to bring a message of hope!
For more information about Overdose Awareness Day please visit here.
By Major Robyn Fernihough - Territorial Social Programme Secretary, Australia Southern Territory.
This was originally published in the Others supplement in On Fire Magazine, 28 August 2010.
