A Vision For A Life Of Prayer
- Posted by Julee Huy
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“I remember when we prayed together, the whole church together. I grew up listening to adults pray mature, adult prayers. They showed reverence and depth and faith that with God nothing is impossible.”
What Will Be Remembered
The quote above was Ray Ortlund reminiscing on his days growing up in an “uncool” church. They didn’t have hip music or fresh communication, but apparently Ray remembers that there was “something real and solid and powerful there”. Something, I suspect, that was profoundly shaped by the weekly breathing in of prayer saturated air.
Ray Ortlund’s quote reminds me of a question that Jim Cymbala, pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, asked in his book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. In it, Jim Cymbala poses this question:
Seriously, what will our children and grandchildren grow up experiencing in church? Extended times of waiting on the Lord will be totally foreign to their experience. There will be no memory bank of seeing people reach out to God. All they will recall are professionally polished, closely timed productions.
For me, I have no memories or visions of humble believers on their knees pleading a case or a cause with the Master of the Universe. Of course that’s to be expected as I did not grow up in a Christian home nor did I attend church. But what about my kids and the kids that attend For His Glory Community Church? What will be the echoing memories of a child that spends 18 years at FHG? What memories and what impressions will they walk away with about the house of God. Oh how utterly sad the thought that what may be most remembered are “hearty potlucks” and “quaint picnics”.
It Makes Sense, Right?
Of all the things that church ought to convey, I think it ought to convey that God is unique, transcendent, holy, supernatural, non-human, glorious and majestic and wonderfully awesome. What better way to do that than to get on our knees and cry out to God to move in ways that cannot be done by committees or programs or even by worship or preaching. For churches to be places where prayer happens makes all the sense to me. Every world religion I can think of, every single one, puts a premium on prayer. You go to their temples and the one common thread you will find is that people pray. They pray to idols and they pray in false hope, but they do pray. I think of that and I wonder how we miss the boat in this area as western evangelical churches. So much is about the preaching (and I’m all for preaching) and the worship, making the church about the abilities and gifting of man. Rarely is it the case that the most impressionable and impactful part of a church service is the earnest and deep soul-crying prayers of God’s people. That would make sense though, right? What doesn’t make sense is that the Creator of all things, powerful beyond all understanding, absolutely sovereign in all matters, asks and even commands His people to pray and beseech His answers; and in response, when tens and hundreds and thousands of people gather together with problems and struggles and heartaches, all that is often prayed is a prayer to open the service, to open the word, and to open the exit door. I am guilty of this!
Our Great Need, Our Great Opportunity
I admit that I don’t fully understand the workings of prayer. I understand some of it, perhaps most of how it works, but there is always a part of praying that hits the antinomy of God’s will and my request. And yet I know this – Jesus prayed, He commanded us to pray, the early church prayed, every believer that has lived a life that I value prayed, every revival has been preceded by prayer, any church that has caused me to say “Do that here at FHG, LORD” prays and they pray together, corporately. In the depths of my heart I know that what I so long to see happen at this church is fully dependent upon us being a praying people and a praying church.
A Vision Needed To Pray
Our vision for 2013 is to have a life of prayer. We need that. We need not only to pray but we need a vision to pray. Unless we have a vision to pray, we will have no intentionality to pray and the reality is, we will default to anything BUT disciplined, hard-ground tilling prayer. We will talk, we will sing, we will meet, we will strategize, we will even sleep rather than pray. We will do all this and find very little fruit from our labors. This year is vital to the long term life of For His Glory Community Church and prayer is vital to this year. I’m more convince of that than ever in my life.
“Oh Father, convince us by your Spirit that the great privilege we have is to come boldly before Your throne and ask boldly in the name of Your Son. Give us a heart to desire more than we can do on our own and give us opportunity to see Your hand move sovereignly on behalf of your people. Teach us to pray. Compel us to pray. Make it part of the life and labor of this church. For Your Glory! Amen.”
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