Last weekend I attended the New England chapter of the
CCCC’s annual meeting. It was a great time for worship, learning, and
catching up with old friends (as well as
making new ones).
The speaker for the day was Rev. Dr. John Kimball who
heads the church redevelopment ministry of the CCCC. I want to share with you
one of his observations about chuches across the country: prayer is missing
from the life of the church.
I am sad to say I agree. For the great majority of
chirstians today, the sum of the average prayer life is one part recitation of
prayer on Sunday and one part grace at the dinner table.
I dont’t know about you, but when Mandi and I are not
able to have time together to talk and listen to what is happening in our
lives, our relationship suffers. If your relationship with your husband or
wife with whom you live and see on a
daily basis can be quickly and negatively affected by lack of personal
communication, how much more hurt do we bring on oursleves when we don’t take
the time to talk with God whom we can’t see?
What I have been learnning is how important it is to
take that time, to make that time a priority, a non-negotiable.
I have been learning that one of the most important
parts of prayer is listening. I have found that when I ask God things, He often
has an answer for me right then. But we don’t often stop talking long enough to
let God get a word in edgewise. We often do prayer as if we were sending a
letter to God, or maybe leaving a message on His answering service. We say what
we want to say (which is often really just saying what we want), sign it with
an “amen,” and then move on to something else.
I want to challenge you to hold off on that “amen”
until you give God a chance to respond. Take the time to listen when you pray.
And when you hear that answer, no matter if it is “yes,” “no,” “not yet” or
“here is what I want you to do next,” then say amen and go and do what He wants
you doing with joy and gladness. You’ll be glad you did.
