Passionate, patient, persistent and then powerful. The progression of prayer.

Tonight I went and prayed at my church’s prayer room.  In my ‘umble opinion it was probably the most pathetic prayer effort I’ve ever undertaken.

My wife recently made the observation that I love alliterations.  “No shoes Sherlock,” I thought.  Or at least this is close to what I thought, but I’m trying to keep this a family friendly site, so let’s go with shoes.

The prayer room is very peaceful.  Late at night it’s a good place to nap.  I don’t know what it says about me that I can fall asleep while I’m on my knees praying.

I started off the prayer time by telling God I only had 30 minutes.  In my defense, I continued, I have better things to do.  Not better, but more productive.  I then proceeded with this line of thought by falling asleep on my knees (as mentioned). 

Upon waking I tried to dig myself out of the hole I was in by talking to God very honestly about prayer.  I began my prayer with “I feel…” This is a counseling trick they teach you.  Use the words “I feel” or “it seems” since they come across as less accusing and definitive.  “I feel like prayer is a waste.  God, you don’t seem to answer prayer anyway.  I feel like I could use my time doing stuff that you don’t seem to want to do.”

I often wonder whether I’m on the right path when it comes to prayer, miracles, healings, prophecy and faith.  There aren’t many others that I’ve seen on this path.  I believe many Christians come across this path.  The path of brutal honesty with God, yet persistence and faith anyway.  Too many either embrace the brutal honesty and then walk away from God.  Or, they avoid honesty in order to keep their walk with God on course.  I have this inkling that the best course … well its obvious which course I’ve chosen.

So there I am in my pathetic prayer time, being brutally honest (not mean, but honest) with God, then falling asleep.  I just needed to remind everyone of the stage.  This is when God came down and in His glory … did nothing.  In fact I think I fell asleep twice more.  As I drove home my mind returned to the more productive thing I had to do; write in my blog.  Since I’ve resolved to write everyday in the month of February I only had 10 minutes to start my entry in order to get it date stamped on Saturday.  I could edit the date, but that would be dishonest.  And honesty is one of my few character strengths.  Actually, ironically I have many character strengths so I just lied when I said I have few.  Course if you now strike off honesty then …

I get home, log into my website and I have three minutes till midnight.  Enough time to think up a title and save it.  That’s when the title in alliteration form struck me.  I then saved it and went into the TV room to finish the Sorcerer’s Apprentice and eat my literal midnight snack.

Has anyone ever noticed how many films, media, books and the like there are nowadays that the hero must accept his/her calling, develop their supernatural powers and then face off against a great evil?  Star Wars is the obvious franchise.  But you have Harry Potter, countless comic book movies, The Matrix trilogy, and the list goes on but I’m too tired to think of any other examples right now.

I find the obvious parallel to our walk with Christ.  But I’m afraid too many Christians miss this.  Rarely do we accept our calling.  For those few who do, fewer still develop the supernatural gifts of the spirit that Christ promised us and the Holy Spirit wants to empower us with.  And as far as facing down a great evil?  Well we’ll pay good money to see someone else do that … in the movies.

That is the thing that came up tonight in my prayer breaks between naps.  This also returns us to our title.  Prayer and answered prayers don’t just happen.  We expect instant results.  We read promises in the Bible and “name it, claim it” without the slightest understanding of context or progression.

God showed me in November (and I blogged about it) that there is a progression in our relationship with Him.  It starts as strangers, then slaves, then servants, then friends, then heirs and it will culminate with our marriage to Christ.  I may have missed a stage or two, but the point is clear.  We see this progression with the disciples, and if you read carefully you’ll notice at each stage there are different promises. 

I have so much to say, but tonight I’ll conclude with the progression mentioned in the title.

New Christians are passionate in their prayers and God seems to respond quickly when they pray.  As time goes on and the passion dims, we progress to the stage of patience in prayer.  Prayers aren’t answered as quickly or they are answered in ways we didn’t want, so we plug on ahead in prayer with much patience.

For those who haven’t given up yet the longest journey is the third stage of persistence.  This stage varies in length but just to scare you a bit; for Moses it was 40 years, for Joseph it was about 17 years,  David also around 17 years, Abraham 20 years, and for the Israelites looking for the Messiah around 800 years.

But as the saying goes, “persistence pays off.”  The disciples were in the upper room for 10 days and the power fell and the world has never been the same.  My pastor asked the haunting question when he taught on Acts this past fall, “how many Christians have given up on day 9?”

If you are anything like me and want to journey on the path of “brutal honesty, yet faith anyway” then this question will drive you until you get the promised power.  We’d expect nothing less in our movie escapism.  You can’t face a great evil UNTIL you’ve undergone your training young padawan.  Why should we expect less in our walk with God.

“Press on, mi amigo. Press on, mon ami.  Walk on in the face of the mystery.  Though the night hides the light, through the darkness till dawn.   Tie your shoes, my dear friend … and press on.”  – Billy Sprague, “Press On”

I know it will kill the rhyming scheme but to adapt those lyrics to this article you’ll need to replace “press” with “pray” and “friend” with “Sherlock.”