Have you ever pondered the depth of your prayers? Yes, there have been seasons of longing and persevering. But there are also days of “drive-thru” praying – cruising up to the window and ordering up something to quench the current thirst.
I must admit that many of my days God gets thirty minutes of focused attention in the morning as I wake up, a cursory “thank you” as I sit down to eat, an evening whisper as I lay my head to sleep. Throughout the day I may send up quick prayers as I tell someone that I am praying for them. But these well-worn friends, of which I speak, have taught me that my prayer life holds no desperation. They have shown me what it means to dig down and hold on until I find God’s face looking into mine. Let me introduce you to a couple of these friends.
There is the young friend who lived in my house when he was eight years old. He and his five siblings had come to live with us after their mom walked out and left them and their dad behind in the dingy motel room where they had lived for the past year. They had been functioning as best they could under the circumstances but it had gotten overwhelming and dad needed help. So when God whispered in my ear, we sent for them. And they arrived on a Greyhound bus with all of their earthly possessions in a couple of boxes.
He was the oldest and he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. He taught me to pray more passionately one night as we sat at the dinner table. They had been with us for over a month but they were still rushing through their plates of food as if it would disappear if they didn’t. My husband said to him “you can slow down. As long as you are in this house, I promise that you will never grow hungry.” The eight year old soul looked into his face and said “Uncle Geoff, when you go to bed at night and there is nothing in the refrigerator, it is hard to believe that anything will be there in the morning.” It had seemed like a valid promise, but an empty one without Almighty God to back it up. He taught me how to pray with faith that is the reality of things hoped for, the evidence of the unseen.
There was another young man, a good bit older than the first but still too young for the horrors he had seen. He told me of his journey from his war-torn land. He told me how they ran, when the soldiers came, with only the clothes on their backs and whatever animals they could shove in a bag to carry along with them. This would be their sustenance while they waited for the firestorm to clear from their region. And every day they would climb the mountain to be nearer to God and to pray. They were crying out for relief from this life of fear. They were pleading for a Mighty Warrior to come and save them. They were trusting that the God of Israel was also the God of the Congo. He told me that, here in America, his people no longer seek God’s face the way they did there. He taught me that when you are not desperate, you lose your fervor for God’s presence.
And now I am being taught the power of persistent prayer. Through the wonders of technology I have met another young man on the other side of the world. He sits in a place that he longs to leave. And he sits in a place where I long to be serving one day. He is a refugee from his country in a camp across the border from his home. He is still a “prisoner” of his circumstances but he reached out to me. It is a God connection – a sacred one. I don’t have the resources or the political clout to help him out of that place. But I do know a powerful and loving God. And I know that where two or more gather together in prayer God is with them. And so every morning as I pray I lift his name as he goes to sleep. And every evening as I lay my head to rest, I pray for him as he wakes. And I have promised that I will do this until he is free. I’m not letting go of the hem of Jesus’ garment.
And what about us who have never truly known want. We who have food in our refrigerators. We who have cars to get to and from work. We who can go to church openly and invite others to go with us without fear. We who have more gadgets at our fingertips than most countries have Bibles. We who grow complacent because we are not desperate enough to need a Savior. God forgive us for forgetting that even the good and perfect gifts come from you.