There are a couple directions this post is coming from. One is from a couple experiences of the Global Day of Prayer and the other is from an MSN conversation. I was reading Coralee's post from June 4th where she wrote:
"Went to the 'Dome for Glbal Day of Prayer today. Rather disappointing since they only gave us three 2-5 minute segments to actually pray, and kept cutting us off by announcing time was almost up. Sad influence of our jet-set a.d.d. multi-tasking pre-programmed self-seeking culture. For some strange reason I was expecting a prayer meeting. Where I get these odd ideas from, I'm not sure."
This reminded me of my experience at church that day. Pastor Keith put a list of things to pray for on the screen, then had us get into small groups to pray for these things. Our group started praying and were quite content to continue doing so, but after about 10 minutes we were interrupted and were invited to join in worship (singing). I was upset by this and it happens way too often! Why must we stick to schedules so tightly? I mean, if some people needed to leave,t hey could have done so, but why interrupt a corporate time of prayer (especially on the Global Day of Prayer!) to move on to something else?!?!?!
This brings me to my second direction for this post. I was talking with a friend on MSN and I thought of how the statement, "I will pray for you" does not seem to mean as much to people these days. Is it because so many people say it but don't do it? Is it because it has become something that people say without even thinking about it? A Christian cliché? When someone says these words to you, do you say a simple "Thanks" and just brush it aside? Or are you truly thankful for this act of love?
What about when someone is saying they will pray for you and they say, "It's the least I could do"? Do they realize what they are actually saying with those words? It is completely irreverant to say that prayer is the least you could do. It belittles prayer, which directly belittles God. Prayer is one of the most important and beneficial things we could do! In fact, some of the things we might be physically able to do for a person could be less beneficial than prayer. When will we learn to trust God?
I do realize that it is important to help people physically when we can, but I do not agree with the idea of giving people something just because they say they need it. That has done a lot of damage to a lot of people.
Thinking back to the question "When will we learn to trust God?"... How often should we pray for something? Should we not pray for it because God knows what we want and need anyways? Should we pray for it once and leave it in God's hands? Should we keep praying for it until we get it know we won't get it? Is it different when it comes to things or people? Is it different when it's intercession?
Regardless of the answers to these questions, we need to remember to get face down before our God.
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4 comments:
Hey, thanks for sharing your thoughts. They are things that really need to be addressed. I used to find myself using that Christian cliche, "I'll pray for you" and realized that I would rarely do it. Now as I am desiring to be an Integrous woman of God I've become more concious of my words and what they mean to people. At the same time I'm more and more realizing the power of prayer and what a special thing it is to have people praying for me. Anyways, thanks again for the thoughts.
You know what I do... When I tell someone that I will pray for them, I usually do it immediately after saying goodby to them or finishing a comment like this one. I may forget (you know how good my memory is) about it later, but I have engaged heaven for my friend.
Scott I tend to take the same route, but the Lord is working on me and showing me times where I can really throw down and pray. Sylvia, I've loved your thougths though, they will provide a lot of internal discussion!
Two parts to this comment:
1. I totally agree about the Christian cliche "I'll pray for you." It has been reduced to the level of meaning that "How are you doing?" has in casual conversation. Either we should stop using it...or do it (gasp! the horror of actually keeping our word!)
2. As for the Global Day of Prayer, I felt the same way. In last year's day, we had way more time to pray in those groups. I think that the time would have been better spent like that. Although we did have a responsive prayer session and people led in prayer, I think more interaction would have made it better. Also, there was a high emphasis on the music, which according to the program was supposed to be for the first 30 minutes and then the prayer was to start. However, the music kept popping up. I have nothing against music, but lets pray and then sing some more later. I felt like the Global Day of Prayer was more like an infomercial showing prayer as "a really good idea".
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