I apologize, right off the bat, for this blog post. We were supposed to practice prayer this week, and I am pretty sure I failed.
I failed because I had planned to do one sort of prayer, and found myself doing another. The problem was, this "other" sort of prayer has been somewhat in my routine of late. It was not necessarily stretching. I did not feel like I was practicing anything new.
But I talked to God. So that should count, right?
Okay, I'll give some background.
Prayer has been on my mind in a particular way this semester because part of the living-learning community that I am a part of is that we lead Bible studies, and the one I happen to co-lead is about prayer. This Bible study is focused on what the Bible has to say about prayer, but it is also extremely practical, too. We spend a large portion of our Bible studies praying. Each week, we have a different practice of prayer that we focus on, so we all get a chance to act it out. In doing this, I have been learning about different ways to pray throughout the day.
So I feel like I took a shortcut because my practice of prayer was acted out during Bible study. I didn't mean for that to be the experience I wanted to write about, but when I looked back in Celebration of Discipline to get an idea of how I wanted to practice prayer, I realized that my prayer during Bible study addressed aspects of prayer that Foster talked about.
The best part about this prayer is that it was so organic. One of the members shared how she was struggling spiritually. As we were discussing prayer, as usual, she brought up the point that Foster addresses in Celebration of Discipline: "It is easy for us to be defeated right at the outset because we have been taught that everything in the universe is already set, and so things cannot be changed. And if things cannot be changed, why pray?"
Our Bible study turned into a prayer session for her and for the spiritual warfare that has been pervading our campus. We didn't cover all the points we had laid out to discuss, but that was not important. What was important was that we took the chance to uplift our sister. I prayed with the expectation that what we were praying for would happen, trying to exemplify the Bible pray-ers that Foster brings up right after he writes the aforementioned quote.
This also incorporated practicing prayer against evil. This semester, there has been a crazy amount of spiritual warfare. I have never felt so much spiritual oppression in my life, perhaps because I am growing spiritually and because so many people at our college are on fire for God. I have prayed against it many times in the past few months, which is why I feel guilty for writing about this prayer, because I have been practicing it a lot lately. Yet every time, it is a new battle. I am honored to be able to fight in this war and speak the name of Jesus against evil. Even so, sometimes it is hard. But I do know that the power of prayer is astounding.
Through prayer, we have the privilege to participate in God's plan. Yes, he has everything planned out, but our prayers do have significance.
The great thing is, I checked in with our struggling sister today and she is doing much better. She has felt God's presence and had some good conversations with people who have encouraged her. It was an answer to our prayer. I realized as I was checking in with her how rarely I go back to see if my prayers were answered. Sometimes when I pray for other people, it is hard, and even a little uncomfortable, to ask them how they are doing. What if God did not answer our prayer in the way we wanted? What if the cancer came back, or the student failed their exam, or the friend did get the abortion? What do we do then?
My answer would be, pray some more. Pray, as Foster advises, for guidance. When we ask for guidance before we pray, according to Foster, we will already know what God's will is. And to add to his point, praying for guidance even after our petitions go unanswered can help us understand, even the tiniest bit, why things happened the way they did. It might not be an answer that gives us complete satisfaction in the situation, but it can at least start to give us peace. And sometimes we will never understand.
I think that is all I have to say. I failed at practicing prayer because I did not go out of my way to practice what I wanted to practice. Despite my depravity, however, I was able to experience God in another prayer experience. I learned this week that it can be daunting to pray, especially because God has everything planned out. But I also learned how valuable prayer is, and what a privilege it is to commune with God, who is so big but takes the time to talk with me.
I am praying for a profound last line to this blog post, but nothing is coming to me. Maybe God doesn't want me to be earth-shattering? I don't know. I'll pray about that next.
Until next week,
Sara Joy
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