Last night’s prayer meeting looked at bringing people into the light of Christ through our prayers. Jesus is the Light of the world who has come into our world and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:5, John 8:12) As Matt Redman’s ‘Light of the World’ makes clear, we need Jesus to shine His light on us and to illuminate the darkness:
As we pray for people and situations which are beyond our ability to change, we need to bring them to the light of Christ and then be prepared to leave them there. Sometimes we ‘worry our prayers’, constantly begging God to move. Persistence in prayer is obviously a good thing, but there are times when this is simply a disguise for a lack of faith and trust.
Waiting is an essential, but disliked, part of prayer! In Luke 15, Jesus talks about things that are lost. In the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd is pro-active, leaving the 99 sheep in the pen and searching for the one lost sheep. In the parable of the lost coin, the woman is pro-active, sweeping every corner of the room until she finds her lost coin. In the parable of the lost son, however, the father waits. He is looking for the son’s return; he is watching and waiting (and I’m quite sure he was praying!), but he is not active in the same way. Eugene Peterson says ‘something other than aggressive energy is required. Something no less energetic, yet passive – passive energy. There are situations in which our passivities take precedence over our activities.’ (‘The Word Made Flesh’, P 94)
Many of us do not like this waiting aspect of prayer. (If we are honest, most of us don’t like any form of waiting at all!) But ‘waiting provides the time and space for others to get in on salvation. Waiting calls a time-out, puts us on the sidelines for a while so that we don’t interfere with essential kingdom-of-God operations that we don’t even know are going on. Not-doing involves a means of detaching my ego, my still immature understanding of the way God works comprehensively but without forcing his way, without coercion. The restraint of passivity allows for the quiet, mostly invisible complexities and intricacies that are characteristic of the Holy Spirit as he does his work in us, in the church and in the world for whom Christ died.’ (ibid. P 94-95)
Most of us believe that we need to do more for God. I’m not so sure that is the case. ‘The primary concern of the spiritual life isn’t what we do for God but what God does for us’, Eugene Peterson remarks in his commentary on David. (‘Leap Over A Wall’, P 99) He later goes on to say ‘‘Biblical not-doing is neither sloth nor stoicism: it’s a strategy. When David sat down before God, it was prayer. It was entering into the presence of God, becoming aware of God’s word, trading in his plans for God’s plans, letting his enthusiasm for being a King with the authority and strength to do something for God be replaced with the willingness to become a King who could represent truly the sovereignty of God, the high King.’ (ibid. P 163-164)
Perhaps the reason that the prayer meeting is attended by the lowest number of people in most churches is that we are not ready to sit down before God, bringing people into the Light, because we do not see that as active enough. We need a complete re-moulding of our understanding of activity and a whole-hearted trust in the efficacy of prayer. Only God can save, heal, restore, turn situations around. There are plenty of things we can do (love, serve, feed the poor, forgive, clean the toilets, make the teas and coffees), but we need to be prepared to allow God to do the things only He can do, without interfering, without nagging, without despairing. He will not forget. He is not slow as we understand slowness. He is gracious, loving and working His ways out all the time.