Out of the Wilderness

What good that I might pray for fifty years
for old friends who are in a spiritual mess,
and have but hope, despite my many fears,
to lead some day out of the wilderness?

If prayer is so effective and so strong,
why are my prayers for these old friends so weak?
Yet not for me to pray would be so wrong,
and praying makes their outlook seem less bleak.

Besides my love compels my heart to pray,
and put their fate in God's hands with my trust
that from the wilderness He'll find a way,
if I just keep on praying as I must.

Compelled by love and trust, my prayer brings peace,
Lord, You'll bring them, from wilderness, release.

                                     -- by Pete Voelz       10/10