What will it take?

Posted on by Rebecca

Many of us love this familiar passage:

“”And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit.”

‭‭Joel‬ ‭2:28-29‬ ‭ESV‬‬

However, we tend to overlook some verses that lead up to it:

“”Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.

Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber.”

‭‭Joel‬ ‭2:12-13, 15-16‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Can you imagine pastors in a region issuing a call for prayer and fasting — and having all of God’s people respond, with parents bringing their children into the prayer gatherings, and newlyweds leaving their honeymoons to come and pray? How desperate would we have to get for something like that to happen? How much more violence, bloodshed, civil unrest, and terrorist attacks will it take for the Church in America to repent, fast, weep, and allow our hearts to be broken? What will it take for us to make joining together in prayer a priority?

A prayer for peace

Posted on by Rebecca

O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting on your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries, through the night of Jesus Christ our Lord.

– from Texts for Common Prayer

Uganda

Posted on by Rebecca

From today’s morning office:

Among the new nations of Africa, Uganda is the most predominantly Christian. Mission work began there in the 1870’s with the favor of King Mutesa, who died in 1884. However, his son and successor, King Mwanga, opposed all foreign presence, including the missions.James Hannington, born 1847, was sent out from England in 1884 by the Anglican Church as missionary Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa. As he was travelling toward Uganda, he was apprehended by emissaries of King Mwanga. He and his companions were brutally treated and, a week later, 29 October 1885, most of them were put to death. Hannington’s last words were: “Go tell your master that I have purchased the road to Uganda with my blood.”

The first native martyr was the Roman Catholic Joseph Mkasa Balikuddembe, who was beheaded after having rebuked the king for his debauchery and for the murder of Bishop Hannington. On 3 June 1886, a group of 32 men and boys, 22 Roman Catholic and 10 Anglican, were burned at the stake. Most of them were young pages in Mwanga’s household, from their head-man, Charles Lwanga, to the thirteen-year-old Kizito, who went to his death “laughing and chattering.” These and many other Ugandan Christians suffered for their faith then and in the next few years.

In 1977, the Anglican Archbishop Janani Luwum and many other Christians suffered death for their faith under the tyrant Idi Amin.

Thanks largely to their common heritage of suffering for their Master, Christians of various communions in Uganda have always been on excellent terms.

(written by James Kiefer)

Prayer

O God, whose blessed martyrs in Uganda opened in the heart of Africa the new and living way of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ: Grant us, who cherish their remembrance before thee this day, to remain steadfast in our faith in him, to whom they gave obedience unto death; even the same Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Prayer of thanksgiving 

Posted on by Rebecca

From today’s morning office:

Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all whom you have made. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies, that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory throughout all ages. Amen.

Living the adventure

Posted on by Rebecca

I would like to write that the reason no new posts have appeared for awhile is because I’ve been far too busy having adventures in prayer to write about them. While that might sound quite pious and spiritual, it isn’t exactly true. The truth is that I’m finding it difficult to articulate those things that I have wanted to express on this blog.

But, I did want to share my latest adventure. Hopefully I’ll follow this with a longer post in a few days, describing my experience.

I’m writing this from the International House of Prayer in Kansas City.
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I’ll have to save the story of how I got here…and why I’m here for the next few days…for a future post.

In the meantime, I’ve been spending the past hour and a half worshipping, praying, and meditating on Scripture. And writing this blog post.

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Prayer of repentance

Posted on by Rebecca

Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against thee
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved thee with our whole heart:
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of thy Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we my delight in thy will,
and walk in thy ways,
to the glory of thy Name. Amen.

– from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer

A place to pray

Posted on by Rebecca

The Bible tells us to “pray without ceasing”, which would necessitate the ability to pray anywhere and everywhere. That, in turn, would seem to imply that we don’t need a special place set aside just to pray.

So why do I have this in my living room?

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To be honest, I don’t have a theological reason, or a particularly profound one. There is nothing particularly holy or sacred about anything in this picture. But I have discovered that I am the sort of person who benefits from having a place set aside for prayer. It is a constant reminder that I have committed myself to a life of prayer. It is both an encouragement and a gentle rebuke when I fall short. It is a place where I can shut out all (well, as many as possible) distractions and focus on God.

I need physical, visual reminders. I’m just that sort of person. And I am growing increasing aware of my need for places and spaces that are set aside…consecrated even…for prayer.

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It’s a rather puzzling realization for a house church person to be making.

Praying outside of the prayer closet

Posted on by Rebecca

“She wants you to pray for her.”

And so I did, right then and there, in the restaurant. What she wanted and needed was not just that I would bow my head in silence, during which I could have been thinking of anything as far as she could tell. No, she needed to hear and see that I was praying, even if she couldn’t understand the language I was speaking.

That’s why I stood by her chair, rested my hand on her shoulder, and prayed aloud.

Recently I have come across some articles and blog posts taking issue with public prayer, claiming that Jesus’ words about praying in one’s closet meant that we should pray only in secret isolation and never where anyone might see or hear us. I’m not here to offer a theological rebuttal to that impractical and — I fully believe — unbiblical assertion. All I know is that it seems ridiculous to me that Jesus would have wanted me to respond to this woman, “I will pray for you just as soon as I find a secret hiding place.”

Other people in the restaurant might have found my behavior odd, wacky, or even offensive — especially when I raised my other hand towards heaven. I wasn’t putting on a show. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone with my piety. I wasn’t shouting out flowery prayers. I wasn’t “preach-praying”. Frankly, I didn’t give anyone else in the restaurant a thought.

It was all about her. 

She needed prayer. Her head had been resting on another woman’s shoulder as she wept and wept, a torrent of tears that had been held inside of her for a very long time. Her story was grim and painful, her situation tragic and desperate. I wanted to scoop her up in my arms and take her and her children — including the baby she had not been able to see for two months — back home to America with me.

She was a bar girl, a prostitute we had “bought” for the evening. The bar owner had lured her into coming to Pattaya and working there, with promises of better wages to support her children back in her home village. She had only been in town, working at the bar, for three weeks. She looked deeply sad…and shell-shocked.

I prayed for her. I knelt down by her chair, fighting back my own tears, looked her in the eyes, and said, “I came all the way from America to tell you that Jesus loves you.” Over the course of the evening, I told her more than that, and I spent even more time listening to her. (We had interpreters to help us overcome the language barrier.) But I meant my words. My trip would have been entirely worth it to me if all I had accomplished the entire time we were there was telling her about the love of Jesus — because she was worth it. She was that lost lamb Jesus told about, the one that it is worth leaving the 99 sheep in order to search for.

We did more than pray. She now knows about the Tamar Center and about the hope it offers her. My new friends there will follow up with her and stay in contact.

Now I’m back in the States. I want to be the type of person here who is willing to pray in restaurants — not to be obnoxious or to make a show, but to be there for those in need. I want to feel as free and open here as I did there in Thailand. I want to be brave enough to take prayer out of the closet and into wherever it’s most needed.

Why a new blog?

Posted on by Rebecca

Adventures in prayer? What kind of wackadoodle name is that for a blog? And why start a new blog when my other one (“Prone to wander”) is so sporadic?

The idea has been percolating for perhaps a week now, and today I finally decided to implement it. Two different blogs make sense, even though there may be some overlap in readership…assuming I get some readers! The content will be different; the focus different; and the types of people drawn to either blog may eventually end up being fairly different as well. We’ll see.

As for the title…I’m reminded of, as a small child, sitting through prayer meeting after prayer meeting in our tiny church, my older brother and I the only children forced to attend. The prayers droned on seemingly forever as we sat around the table in a Sunday School room. My head was bowed with the hopes that no one would notice the scandalous truth — I didn’t keep my eyes shut the entire time. In fact, I would scrutinize the table top, memorizing every blemish, every scratch, every pencil mark, every gouge, every name or set of initials carved in with ballpoint pen. We complained about this torment once. At least, I recall only the one complaint.

“It’s so boring! No other children have to attend!” we protested.

My mother was quick to reply, “Prayer is not boring! That’s because God is not boring. People might be boring, but God is never boring.” This was followed by a speech, actually more of a sermonette, designed to inspire us to repent over our prayerlessness and have more of a love and zeal for God.

I wish I could say that I took this speech of my mother’s to heart and that, as a small child in early elementary school, I embarked on a lifelong prayer adventure. Such did not happen.

Certainly, since that day, my attitude about prayer meetings has changed. I’ve learned the truth of my mother’s words. I’ve experienced some truly non-boring — even exciting! — times of prayer with others. But I’ve always been somewhat of a late bloomer, so it’s now, almost half a century later, that I am finally truly beginning to experience what a real adventure prayer can be.

That’s what this blog is about. It’s about one woman learning how to pray…how to really pray — the sorts of prayers that change me, and change others, and hopefully change my world.