What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? – Deut. 4:7
Mmmmm. Now what a thought. Prayer is most definitely my new favorite thing to use words for. Writing? Psh. Not even a close second. Talking. To the Author and Perfecter of our faith. What other people are struck with the presence of God as they pray to Him than the children of the Lord? And isn’t that why we complain about “this life” so much anyway? On a day to day, I hear so much complacency in this world. As if it’s just this big waiting room to get to Heaven. But why? The goal isn’t getting to Heaven. The goal is getting to Jesus.
No, we will not experience the fullness of God, the fullness of love, the fullness of a reality we’ve set so far from the world until we see Him face to face. But our God is near to us now. When we pray to Him.
Is it not the way Jesus taught us to pray that God’s kingdom would come to earth “as it is in Heaven” (Matthew 6:10)? So how selfish a notion that we can just sit around [while families are broken, and children are starving, and husbands and fathers are falling at war, and world leaders are corrupting their nations, and disease is spreading, and little girls don’t know their worth and little boys don’t know they were made to lead tomorrow] and hope that we’ll be comfortable till we get to Heaven.
“With the elders as well, we sat down and realized, ‘Where did we get this idea that the goal of the church was to fill a room just to hear the word of God and sing worship songs to Him?’ There’s so much more in Scripture.”
- Francis Chan, The Crazy Mission of Francis Chan
Last semester, in the November entry called Here World: Here’s My God, I wrote about how God made clear to me in a night of prayer that He was moving me to stand up, and I didn’t even know for what at the time. Something about boldness and a voice for the voiceless. But I had no idea what that meant. All I knew was that I’m a freshman girl, and even with a big voice, why would anyone want to listen to what I had to say? I do clearly remember Him telling me that my unbelief wouldn’t stop Him from bringing Life to my campus. And I knew I was either for Him, or against Him.
He broke me a lot at the beginning of this semester, putting new passions in my soul and burdens for my community on my heart, still urging me to walk like Him and talk like Him and stand for righteousness and justice like Him, and all the while reminding me that He hadn’t forgotten what He told me so clearly in November. Slowly, I saw myself submitting and giving up my grasp on every firm root in my life that wasn’t Him. Which only enabled me to be more rooted in Love. But also made me look like a crazy. One of those “radicals” threatening all hopes for a purely comfortable conservatism. Jesus defended the weak and the poor, and stood for righteousness and justice, while the Pharisees scoffed at Him and hated His compassion for the “least of these” because it threatened their ideology of religion. If I can do the same-- defend and stand up-- I know my Father is pleased with me, even if no one else approves. I say that, but of course I wasn’t prepared when so many really didn’t approve.
We set out to change the world … and then we realized we couldn’t even change ourselves. Our passion for justice has brought us face to face not only with the world’s brokenness, but with our own limitations. It is within this tension that we have relearned what it means to pray.
– Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
But, like Shane and Jonathan explain, this is where I relearned (or maybe even learned for the first time) what it means to pray. What it means that we can lay our burdened hearts before Him and have Him near us to direct us, and comfort us in the affliction that comes with the cost of picking up our crosses daily and following Him because He said “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18). There is no way to follow Jesus and also be comfortable in the world. It is supposed to reject us.
So since He made that evident, I’ve just been placing my feet in the God-made footsteps before me despite the rejection and discouragement. And it hurts and it is uncomfortable but He keeps assuring me in all my weakness, “Faithful Daughter, I am all-sustaining and I am the Lord of Your life.”
“And all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory. And I realize just how beautiful You are and how great Your affections are for me.“
– David Crowder
And just as He promises that if we abide in Him, He will abide in us (John 15:4), He does just that. This brings me back to prayer and my point now, I promise.
The gifts of the Spirit have been overwhelming. I’ve been lead to a somewhat scattered (but in-sync) community that shares my heart in intimate and specific ways. We share a passion for prayer and an awareness for the power it possesses. We pray fervently and with urgency for this city and our campus, in terms of both community outreach and inward growth for our ministries. We want to see a heart of compassion shared across the widespread Body of Christ just at Mizzou made up of the 22 ministries on campus and we want to see His love, poured out from His servants, transform hearts. And we believe that is possible, but only by our God that is a consuming fire. We want to be a part of His ministry to Mizzou and we know that because we have faith in His sovereignty, He will use us.
[If you abide in Me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. – John 15:7].
Some of the most compelling movements in the world have grown out of people whose whole life became a prayer for God’s Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.
– Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
Seeing how prayer is already connecting the members of our Body and striking passion throughout its appendages, I stand in awe. Seeing how we’re already more eager to adapting and submitting to the will of God is further proof of this power possessed by only prayer. Seeing how God is all the more near to us when we seek and listen, and sit in stillness, and allow Him to be the overflow from our hearts, we pray publically and privately, in community and alone. We want Him near always.
“ ‘Is there hope for America?’ I said yes… because I live with young people who pray and fast for this nation daily. And it’s because of their lives that I know God has a purpose for this nation.” – Matt Lockett
read about this guy and The Cause here: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/mission/features/24782-praying-abortion-to-death
End note: There are a plethora of quoted portions in this post, and it is because I came across SO many articles in the last week, focusing on or including the importance of prayer, that inspired and encouraged me. So I decided I should spread a little of that encouragement.
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