House of Prayer
I just spent last month being a part of the Penang House of Prayer ( PenHOP) in Malaysia. When I first heard of this place I was excited and a bit curious. I have never been to a house of prayer and I had no idea what to expect.
For a large part of my Christian life I didn’t have a very active prayer life. 10 minutes praying felt like a long time and it was a constant battle trying to keep my thoughts from wandering too much. My prayer life has grown a ton since being on the race but the thought of being in the prayer room for 7 hours straight was intimidating. How would I spend all the time?
The first night I was at PenHOP I got to experience what they call “Friday Night Burn”. It’s 4 hours of worship/prayer/devotion time from 8pm to midnight. It. Was. Awesome. It was one of the first times on the race that I’ve felt the freedom to just be with the Lord for an extended amount of time and not have a checklist of things I wanted to do in my “quiet time”. I couldn’t wait to spend the rest of the month there.
Three days a week my team and I would go in to the Prayer room. On Monday’s we had personal devotion then prayed in small groups. On Tuesday we had personal devotion, worship in the Word, and Intercession. On Friday nights we had burn.
Here are some of the things I learned while being at PenHOP:
1. The power of prayer: Sometimes praying can feel ineffective because we don’t always get to see the results of our prayers. This month I didn’t really see my prayers answered but I know that God heard them and is at work. Prayer is the most effective thing we can do.
2. What it means to stand in the gap: It basically means to stand up and pray on behalf of people or situations that aren’t doing it themselves.
3. The importance of just sitting with the Lord: This was a sweet gift. The Lord was able to reveal a lot of things to me this month simple because I sat still in His presence
4. God’s heart for the different nations we prayed for: The best way to know God’s heart for people and/or nations is to pray for them. Prayer aligns our heart with His.
