Pray 4:1

A week or so after coming to this conclusion to pray for the unity of Christians I was walking from Mitcham to Burwood in Melbourne and praying a rosary. At the end of the rosary I asked God if there was a specific time in the day that I should ask people to pray for unity. Immediately I had a sense that the Lord wanted me to pray at four o’clock. I then had an image of the number one and I thought, “‘4:01’. 4:01? God, that’s stupid! What significance does 4:01 have?”

Then I realised that 4:01 was exactly what I was doing – praying for one – praying 4:01. So it has been since that
day that at 4:01pm (I added the pm – go for your life if you want to do the am thing…) I have been inviting people
to set their watch or phone alarm to go off at 4:01pm as a reminder to pray for unity.

To the End’s of the Earth

I set about asking as many people as possible to join in praying for the unity of Christians, but I began to get
frustrated at not being able reach more people outside my immediate friendship group.

As it happened, I was looking at a world atlas one night and as I looked at the world I had a rather innocent thought, “I could walk around the world and invite people to pray for unity.”

That thought never left me and over the following year I met with many people I consider more faith-filled and wiser than myself and pulled apart and prayed about the possibility of me travelling around the world praying for unity and inviting others to pray for unity.

So here I am, a few days from setting off from Australia on a 564 day pilgrimage from Brazil to Spain, praying for the unity of Christians. May we be one in the Lord!

Please set your alarm for 4:01pm and join in praying for unity and if you have the opportunity to, please join me on the road; either on foot, on your bike in the car or on a lama, it really doesn’t matter, any way or how, I’d love to see you!

God bless,