Teach us how to pray, could we be a praying people
Shake us up today Lord.
We're calling out on our knees, desperate Lord for you to be......
Are we??
That is the question that has occupied my thoughts for some time now. We know how to sing about prayer, talk about prayer but we don't really know how to pray. For the last few months I have been drawn into the whole subject. First I went to an Evangelism vision and action evening where one of the sisters spoke about prayer support in evangelism. It was good stuff but I realised pretty soon that it was not really happening in any organised way. There was no targeted prayer say on a Saturday afternoon when people were on the streets. So some of us had the idea of prayer texts. I had a list of people on my phone and texted prayer needs live from the evangelism scene. Peole could pray whilst, doing the Ironing or digging the garden. This has proved to be a successful way to use our resources and has seemed fruitful. There are now 21 people who receive the prayer texts.
I found myself in the position of an administrator of prayers. In addition to that, we started a small intercession time before the Sunday evening meeting. In terms of my personal prayer life although I saw the need to pray, I wasn't really much the wiser about what it involved. Then at the last Bank Holiday weekend I went to one of the pre meeting intercession times, thinking "well I'm into this stuff, I may as well join in". When I got there I was aware of the presence of God, not flashes of lightening or anything extreme like that but enough to shake me up a bit. I wrote down my thoughts in a poem which I subsequently read out at the testimony time:
Not many rich, not any rich,
Or famous, or of note
Were gathered in that corner praying
No great orators, change makers
Worls shakers, no outward strengths portraying
Not fashionable, sexy, cool
Popular, young up and coming
Full of flair
Just lowly people
Knowing inadequacy, nothing fancy
But HE was there.
I didn't go to any more of those times through the weekend. I felt that this was not just something I could dip into and out of. This was serious and I was a bit scared. For some weeks after that I shied away from praying that much. I got that feeling, which you get when you are considering becomeing a christian :- "if I get into this it is going to consume my life and I don't know if I am ready for it". The Lord has kept on knocking though and I have continued to say "teach me how to pray". The other week I was praying it I think when I was in the bathroom in the morning and I felt the Lord said: "you have got to focus" So I got some pieces of card and on each card I wrote a name of someone close to me (18 names in all) then I looked at each of the names for one minute each (setting a timer on my phone - I know I am a nerd!). That was it. I would not particularly call that praying but I was just doing what I thought God was saying to me. I have done this a few times I have also thought about various people in the car on the way to work and most recently when running. I say to myself I am going to think about that person until I get to that point and so on. The way I see it is like this: As I am focussing on a person I am believing that God is focussing upon them and doing them good. I don't think so much that prayer is powerful, rather that prayer moves God's hand and he is powerful. Not that what I am doing is prayer in the conventional sense. Once I have felt a slight sense of what people call "a burden" but that is probably about it. So I am coming to the end of a run last Friday and I'm asking God to teach me how to pray. I get in, have a shower blah blah and so on. Then I start to do a bit in the garden, someone phones me. There is this trial of a new initiative the next day at acc. Continual prayer throughout the meetings would I lead a team and coordinate the other teams and if we decide to roll it out to all big meetings I would be considered the coordinator of that. Interesting. Some kind of agenda is going on here and its not of my doing. All I am asking is to be able to pray particularly for other people and see changes in their lives for the better.
Has anything happened apart from the above - well a few things of note. The other week someone who attends Church occasionally was chatting to me. This person's conversation isn't the most inspiring and usually I try to get away asap but I felt no need to do that. The normal sense of imatience wasn't there. That was good. It seems generally that because I am thinking about people more, I have more time for them. The other thing that has happened is that there seems to have been a lot more opportunity to Pastor people (which is my main ministry). Sunday afternoon was full on sharing with this and that person and it was all good. Possibly the result of sowing to the spirit. Who knows? It bodes well really for how it will be when I really know how to pray.
