My entire life people have told me about the power of prayer. I saw it’s power in other’s lives and even saw it’s power in my own life time to time, but it’s power was limited for me both because I believed prayer had to sound or be phrased a certain way and I did not always have the enough faith to believe my prayers were being heard and answered.
Mark 11:24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours
People spoke the word rest over me for months before I launched on the World Race. At my house church in Athens, the week after I decided to leave school and go on the race, a man said to me, “you need to rest— and rest is not an action, but a state.” Many of the notes I received from friends and family to take on the race quoted Psalm 46: be still and know that I am God. Teammates and squad leaders of mine prayed for me and felt God was asking me to rest. Clearly I am HORRIBLE at taking hints. Finally, with two weeks left on the race, I am beginning to understand the necessity of rest and what it entails. The beginning of rest is prayer, and prayer is any and all of the ways we communicate and commune with God. In doing so we cultivate intimacy with Him.
I have learned so much during my time in Africa. Unfortunately the way I learn most effectively is through trials, challenges and varying degrees of suffering. We have lived fairly comfortably in terms of housing and meals during our time in Africa. Africa has in many ways challenged my expectations. I expected to be living in a tent and eating rice and beans, but instead I am living in a house in a residential area in the city and my physical health is better than its ever been in my life. Who would have thought? Despite our physical comfort I have been challenged in virtually every way (or so it seems) spiritually and emotionally. I have struggled with anxiety, which I have never struggled with in such a tangible way prior to our time in Africa. I have struggled to believe truth about God and myself that I believed so wholeheartedly just a few months ago. I have had doubts about my faith, my standing with God, the Father’s goodness and the Father’s love for me. There were countless days that seemed impossible and it took every ounce of strength I had to hold on to what I knew in my head and make it through those days. Through this, God has humbled me and taught me what it means to daily surrender and take up my cross. He has taught me what it means to depend on Him every moment of every day. He has taught me of His faithfulness, His protection, His sovereignty, His dependability and His limitless goodness. He has brought me to new depths of unwavering relationship with Him. God is God and I am not and that is a good good thing.
In the last month I began to feel a specific and urgent call to prayer both for myself personally and to intercessory prayer for others. Many of the girls I am living with felt the same sort of prompting, so we took action and started a prayer group, but it became more of an obligatory routine and a source of striving than a time of powerful prayer I had so long read and heard about.
My squad leader Esther gave me a book called “Sacred Rhythms” to read in April and slowly but surely I have made my way through the book. In God’s perfect timing, a month and a half later (and Ive FLOWN through books on the World Race), I arrived at a chapter titled, “Prayer.” Coincidence? Probably not.
Here is an excerpt from the book that pertained to my spiritual situation EXACTLY:
“Words pour out to begin with… Mostly a soul speaks a great deal at the time of its conversion, during the period of its novitiate, that is, its first years of its discovery of God. It is the easiest time for the soul. Prayer has a certain novelty; it seizes the imagination. And God, for His part, encourages the soul; everything pours out as in the beginning of a happy marriage. In the next stage, we need to know what others have said about God, so we study a lot and reflect deeply on theological truth. This is a time of great joy and great reward, when many things about God seem clear and our response is glad service. It is good to receive and enjoy these gifts for as long as they are available to us. But eventually there comes a time when prayer just doesn’t work as it used to. Our intellectual considerations of the mystery of God and our wordy responses no longer feel very satisfying. For a while we may try to work harder at prayer the way we have always known it, or we may try to find a better method, but no matter how much effort we put into it or how faithful we are, nothing happens. While we have surely experienced times of dryness before, they always seemed to pass, and experiences of intimacy with God would return. But this time is different. This time we seem to have no control over what does or does not happen in our life with God. This is very traumatic for the tender soul and may send us spiraling into doubt about our spirituality, wondering if we have completely lost our way. As time goes by, we may even become angry at God for not making Himself known to us in ways that are as “knowable” as they were before— especially since we are trying so hard to be faithful. Confusion and questions about how to connect with God set in, and the emptiness seems too much to bear. We wonder if we have somehow fallen off the spiritual path. “There has to be more to the spiritual life than this!” the soul cries out in deep disillusionment. The ability to pray eludes is, and for the first time we know— really know— that we do not know how to pray as we ought”
– Ruth Haley Barton, Sacred Rhythms
Over the past three months I have learned that while there is a time for formal prayer, prayer doesn’t HAVE TO be formal. During my time in Africa my prayers have come in the form of tears, silence, frustration, joy, corporate prayer and individual conversations with God as my Father and Friend. The majority of my prayers have been honest and heartbroken cries to God. I have resonated with the seemingly dramatic prayers in the Psalms now more than ever before. God don’t forsake me. God renew the joy of Your salvation in me to sustain me. God I need to know You are for me and You are good because I am having trouble believing it right now. Soul, why are you downcast? God please don’t turn Your face from me. God please don’t take Your spirit from me. God please do not be silent right now I need to hear from you.
Romans 8:26-27 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
God does not want manufactured prayers that sound like everything is okay, or prayers that sound a “certain way.” When things are good, praise and thank Him. He wants to celebrate with us too, but He searches and knows the heart. He wants honest prayers when things aren’t okay. He is not afraid of them. He is not angry about them.
Emptiness is the prerequisite to receiving. God has honored the honest prayers I have prayed. He has held me, taught me, grown me and healed me from the inside out. He is still healing me to this day. A relationship is honest and faithful during the good and the bad. God wants a relationship with us. He is not a selfish God and He knows the world is not all sunshine and flowers. Tell Him how you feel.
Matthew 5:3 Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Philippians 4:6-7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Sometimes things you know in your head make their way to your heart and even though you always knew it.. now you REALLY know it. You believe it. Ever since I was a child I’ve known that God is always with me no matter what. It’s actually one of the first things they teach you in Sunday school. My mom reminded me of when I was four and I would point to the moon, enamored in that magical childlike way and say, “the moon reminds me of Jesus, it follows me wherever I go!” That truth I’ve always known in my head and perhaps believed as a child got tainted by the world over the years. It wasn’t until this month, at twenty nearly twenty one years of age, that I began to really believe that truth in my heart again. If God is always with me, then I can always talk to Him. How awkward would it be in real life if people walked around together silently 24/7? If I can always talk to Him, then He always listens to me. If He always listens to me then He is always answering and responding to me, even though it is often in ways I do not always comprehend, understand or predict. Prayer is powerful because there is a God who neither leaves you nor forsakes you a single moment of any given day because He loves you, He hears you and He answers you if only we have the faith to receive, the ears to hear and the boldness to say what needs to be said.
Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
CJ
