For the first time, I fasted. It was Biblical fasting, if Biblical fasting included coffee and part of a Diet Pepsi.
I chose the 11 p.m. prayer slot and determined to spend it outdoors, led by Jesus and His Gethsemane example.
(The) Holy Spirit takes our stuttering, stumbling prayers and, without hesitation, replays them for Father and Son. And Father and Son hear it all as beautiful music.
I first shared prayer prompts to grow the prayers of our youth through the seasons of Advent and Lent. I challenged them to stretch their prayers to include one more person each day.
Every day after school, I would text a new prompt.
A child.
A neighbor.
Someone in another state.
If you prayed for your little cousin every day, she couldn’t be the response to the child prompt. But you could pray for your best friend’s little brother, or the child you see walking to school with his father, or the little girl who is always coloring in the back of the sanctuary during worship services.
You didn’t have to know names or ages. God knows. You didn’t have to know the needs of an old classmate now living in another state. God knows. But you had to make room, make time, for one more person, one more prayer.
I began sharing prompts with adults as the virus crisis gathered. I first asked church family to pray with me each night at sunset. From wherever you are, lift whatever joys or concerns are on your heart.
After a week, I added some prompts.
A young family.
Someone you haven’t talked to in at least a year.
Someone grieving.
A young adult.
Someone who is serving you through the crisis. Cardiologist or cashier, pharmacist or Fed Ex driver, church administrator or an anonymous voice who answered your questions over the phone.
I don’t know if the prompts have lifted anyone else, but they are doing marvelous things for me. I can’t stop at one response. I let my heart wander each night and it allows me to find people who loved me, shaped me, prayed for me in critical seasons.
For the “neighbor” prompt, I let my imagination walk through an old neighborhood. I stopped and prayed in front of so many doors.
The “someone you haven’t talked to in more than a year” led me to the people who drew me into children’s ministry, encouraged me and nourished me.
The “someone grieving” prompt led to a family that lost its patriarch six months ago. I’ve known the family, including the patriarch, for more than 40 years, but divorce reconfigured the relationships.
People slip outside the parameters of prayer as new concerns and new faces gain entry. But if prompted to stay in prayer just a little longer, we can find them again.
Do you have time now, at sunset perhaps, to stay in prayer just a little longer?
I will provide a new set of prompts later in the week if you think they might help.
Photo by Bill Utterback
“ … clearly he saw that as we pray for each other, we need to tell each other we are praying. There is power and peace in hearing, “I prayed for you today.”
If we each wash our hands every hour, and stay awake for 16 hours, how many prayers would be lifted?
Should I be embarrassed to admit that prayer stickers work for me?
A few years ago, I started giving my Sunday school kids stickers at the start of the Lenten season. I encouraged them to put the stickers in places where they would be reminded to lift an extra prayer every day until Easter. I encouraged the youth at church to use them, and then I offered them to everyone, setting a basket of stickers at the rear of the sanctuary.
I have continued the tradition each year and I’ve mailed stickers to young friends who have moved on to college, or moved to other states.
We put stickers on our phones, our backpacks and our bathroom mirrors. Some have placed stickers on hair brushes or hair dryers. I’ve placed stickers on my TV remote, my refrigerator and my shower head.
The sticker that has endured is the one on my car radio, a green cross that has persisted for at least two years. I have no more loyal companion than my car radio. We are together every day. It is the only component of my car that asks nothing yet never fails. And now, when I look to my radio, I am reminded to pray.
I see the sticker and lift thanks to the places I’ve been, or I pray into the places I’m approaching. I pray for my children, my Sunday school kids, my youth group, my church family, my co-workers. I may pray for the stars above me or the sun setting in front of me. I sometimes turn the radio off to pray.
Should I be concerned that a sticker leads me to prayer? Shouldn’t my faith, my heart, my trust in Jesus, lead me to prayer without prompting from an aging, fading sticker?
The answer, as always, is in scripture, in Deuteronomy 6: “ Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts …Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your forehead. Write them on the doorfames of your houses and on your gates.”
I thought I was being innovative with my sticker ministry. In reality, I was addressing a need God addressed in the early days in the desert. He knew we would need symbols in places we will see them every day. He knew some of us would respond to stickers on our phones and backpacks and car radios. Bind them on your forehead? Yeah, Sunday school always put stickers on their foreheads. It’s part of the tradition.
And, through my prayer for them, I am changed … . I am not a man who teaches Sunday school for an hour each week and fades into traffic, into the workplace, into groceries and laundry and explorations of empty churches. I am connected and contributing
… too many times in the past, I let a “Help me” suffice when I needed a long conversation. I was afraid of the long conversation.
“ … let me be a blessing to somebody … “
This phrase has stayed with me for days: “ … the very answer to our prayers depended upon us and not upon you.”
“ … the author gathers angels, kings and princes, shepherds, the lost and the broken, into one circle. That’s the work of Christmas. “
We learn when we share. But we rarely share the particulars of prayer. So we’re not really helping each other, are we?
UPDATE: I am going to need another 20 minutes … (posted earlier) I’m going to begin 2020 with 20 minutes of listening.
The deer startled and jogged away. I stayed and prayed for a few moments.
How do we get from “crap day” and “problems” to “I love my life?”
The most compelling prayer I heard this week came from one of the children in my K-1-2 Sunday school class.
The most vigorous debate I’ve ever had with a pastor involved addressing God in public prayer.
The shepherds made it known – “make room for one” – and all who heard it were amazed. Simeon and Anna were waiting at the temple, having created room in their hearts for one. The Magi came later, asking, “Where is the one ...” Each had room for one, gifts for one.