There’s been more than one occasion this week when deep, conversational prayers — at times for an urgent need — have been needed this week, if not for our own family but for others as well.
This has been a pretty wild, up-and-down-and-twisted-around week in a wide variety of ways. Yeah, it’s been one of those “rollercoaster weeks,” even containing at least one complete “rollercoaster day,” that seemed to last from beginning to end.
What a ride! And we’ve survived.
It’s those “conversational” prayers that seem to “pay off” the most. I’ve gotten pretty good at those through the years, starting as early as the age of 8 years old for me when I looked out my bedroom window and looked up at the steeple of the Catholic Church across the street and just had a “conversation” for a suddenly very bad situation to change very quickly. And it did.
I had the same type of prayer back in 1989 when I felt the need over a period of 1-2 hours to ask for someone to share the rest of my life with because I was tired of being alone. That prayer was answered, in a glorious way. It took a little time, but when that time was right … wow!
I had that same type of prayer just over seven months ago now, when I felt my family’s future security was being threatened, and the prayer lasted for a solid two hours. And I’ve basically been continuing that pattern — either out loud or in my mind — ever since then, even if the prayers aren’t as long as two hours and no matter what I’m doing (driving a car, walking around somewhere, you name it). They’ve especially become more frequent and more heartfelt since the time I actually did lose my job and my family’s financial and personal security was threatened just over five months ago this week.
Yeah, it’s been a wild and “crazy” ride ever since then. Even now, though, I feel like all those prayers through all these weeks and months are being answered, on a daily basis. Even though there might be times when even family members might think I’m crazy or my wife is crazy, we’re hanging tough to a promise and our needs are somehow being met.
One thing that’s helped to carry me through in these past three months or so and given me a very different outlook on things has been the book “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan. It’s a life-changing book a good church friend who I’d been sharing my deepest feelings and emotions with one day late last year told me she’d been reading, and I’d wanted to find it and read it myself as soon as she told me about it.
Just weeks later, I went to a Christmas lunch for “staff members” or other volunteer leaders (like me) of my church. Everyone was given a gift. The gift was a copy of the book “Crazy Love.” I don’t consider that a coincidence in my case.
In that book, Francis Chan talks exactly about the kind of prayer that I’m writing about. I’ll let him tell you about it in his own words.
There are a few things I’ve found about prayers through education and my own personal experience.
- There are a few possible answers to those prayers: “yes,” “no,” or “not now, just wait.” I’ve even felt an answer to a prayer that said, quite simply and “crazily,” one other word. “Relax!” Right now, I think we’re more in a “just wait” mode when it comes to my own family’s future. At times, that’s the hardest thing for me and my family to be patient with sometimes. But I feel like I’m moving toward a goal that’s been set FOR me, not BY me.
- You HAVE to ask for what you need. You HAVE to ask for any burdens to be lifted off of your shoulders. And I’ve personally gone through the wonderful feeling of that “lifting.” It’s an awesome experience. It was after a two-hour conversational prayer.
- Prayers are not answered on your own personal schedule. There’s a design in those answers. Patience and trust are required. There may still be times when we can feel impatient, and it’s at those moments in time when it might not hurt to ask for forgiveness for that impatience, for any lack of “trust.”
- The answers can sometimes be a mystery. But if you hang in there, the mystery clears up and more vivid answers are given if you open your mind and your heart wide open to them.
I really believe these things. As long as I’m having these conversational prayers, pretty much on a daily basis, I feel the signs that are given to me to show that — in this rollercoaster ride called life — I’m on the right track, and things will get better. All I have to do is hold on to that belief.
That’s all you can do when there’s nothing left to lose.
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