Starting My Prayer Life
I remember a time when I was serving with Kairos Prison Ministry, and we were inside for four days. This particular weekend seemed slow. The men didn’t seem as excited as they had in past visits, and they seemed like stone walls because the message of Jesus Christ didn’t appear to be penetrating them. A constant prayer that I had for the prior year was that I wanted to see what God was doing in the midst of what He was doing. The prayer came from my realization that I was very good at seeing God’s work…after the fact. I was not so good at seeing what God was doing in the middle of what He was doing. This time, I was standing in back of the room in the prison, watching the end of another slow presentation, when our band began to play. Out of nowhere, the lights seemed to dim. Suddenly, a glow went over the place and men dropped to their knees weeping. These huge men, who would be described as thugs on the street, were broken by God. As I was standing in the back with my arms crossed, I thought to myself, “What is happening right now?” It was as if a Holy Spirit bomb went off and everyone succumbed to a holy fire. It was not long after that when I was home that I came upon the word “heart” in the Bible and looked up its Hebrew origin. I found out that the word “heart” is the Hebrew word “lebab,” which is the inner man, mind, will, heart, soul, understanding, inner part, and midst. My constant prayer for the past year, “Lord let me see what you’re doing in the midst of what you’re doing”, just came to life. It was in the midst of me that I was supposed to see. I was fortunate to witness the Holy Spirit live and in color and to see what He was doing in the midst of the men. I got to see what God was doing in the midst of what He was doing.
God may not answer prayers the way we think He should or the way we would like, but it’s glorious how He does it. When He answers questions, He does it in a way that makes us become introspective and makes us think of the way we should be. He does this, sometimes, instead of changing our circumstances. Our relationship with Him is more important to Him than what we happen to be going through at the time. When Jesus Christ was asked, “Who is my neighbor?”, He eventually described what kind of neighbor we should be. He went through a story of the good Samaritan, the only man to save a victim’s life, and then asked which man was more of a neighbor to the beaten man. When the answer came back, “The one who showed mercy toward him,” Jesus Christ responded, “Go and do the same.” He changes our perspective back to the midst of ourselves when we pray.
One day, I was praying and my good friend, Mark Loomis, was prominent in the prayer. I e-mailed him later that day to thank him for his friendship. God gave both he and his wife power to deal with issues gracefully. I told Mark that the world hits people in the gut and that people who are close to God also get hit in the gut, but they endure. Mark is one of those people who sticks close to God and the world wonders, “Did he just get hit in the gut because it certainly looks like he got hit in the gut.” My original prayer went on and on, but that was the major point that God was telling me about Mark.
King David said, “I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched; My eyes fail while I wait for my God. Those who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head. Those who would destroy me are powerful, being wrongfully my enemies. What I did not steal, I then have to restore. King David was in distress. However, he used his distressful circumstances for restoration instead of allowing himself to be controlled by those circumstances. He knew that the Lord would restore the splendor of Jacob like the splendor of Israel, even though devastators distressed them and destroyed their vine branches.