prayer

I feel like a kindergartner again... today I got sent home sick from church. How often does that happen? After a quick nap, I've decided today is simply too beautiful to be sick inside. Maybe a little vitamin C never hurt anyone.

The Lord has been utterly and completely rocking my life this past week. He has given me more of a thirst for His word than I know what to do with and I hold dear so many precious moments with Him, marveling at His creation and simply singing His praises. This morning as I read His word, my beautiful friend Elissa played and sang sweet worship music. How precious it was to taste and see that the Lord is good together this morning. Somehow I think worship is sweeter when it isn't scheduled but is simply an overflow of the heart.

The past two days several themes have radiated on my heart-- one of them being prayer. Simple, right? I found myself yesterday on my knees in my apartment begging the Lord to guide me because on my own I couldn't see past the carpet. I've learned throughout my life that when something is bathed in prayer, not doused with it but fully bathed in it, it takes it out of my hands and leaves it up to the Lord. Things always turn out better that way.

I chatted last night with Mary Carlisle about what God is beginning to lay on both of our hearts for the summer. I get to meet the rest of our team today and let me tell you, I literally laid in bed last night and squealed, unable to sleep, feeling like a kid on Christmas. My prayers for this team are that there is an overwhelming sense of unity among us, nothing I could ever create but something that is only ordained by God. I whipped out my journal from last summer in search of something specific, and found myself both humbled and amazed at what I found. As I read over my daily prayers from last summer, I am marveled at how sincere and how specific they were. Over and over again I would see these prayers answered. I'd pray for strength, for unity, for the hearts of the kids, and for things I could never dream of accomplishing on my own. I look back on the most life-changing summer I've ever been a part of and know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Lord was so at work because we were so devoted to wholly seeking him out in prayer. I prayed scripture, pieced things together, and begged the Lord to clear my heart to further understand the way. And He did.

But prayer for us so often has become a ministry tool. We use it to transition. We pray over our food because we should. We dismiss through prayer. It's what we know. So often I find my mind a million other places during those prayers.

The bcm is in the process of fully reformatting itself and a moment of honesty? I think something is missing. I think it's been somewhat missing all year. We can have great programming and bring in the best of the best at everything, but if we aren't praying over our every move then we are really running on our own. I remember Wes sharing specific stories last year of amazing things that would happen because people had committed to constantly being in prayer for the ministry. I know that our heart is to do ministry with God, not just about God, and that means us consulting Him each step of the way. I know I fail at that... I tell people I'm praying for them often, but am I always?

This morning at church we celebrated the amazing things the Lord has done in our ministry in the past six months. Amazing progress has been made and I know God's hand is all over it.  Chip challenged us this morning to give and to go but I would like to make one more challenge. I want to challenge myself to pray. Karen and I talked for a long time about prayer this morning (we have some of our best chats on Sundays) and she put it this way on her blog: "I don't want to be part of something that we plan and ask God to bless (or save). I want to be part of something that only God can do ... something worth telling stories about."

Amen to that. Working in ministry for me can often become about planning at 90 miles an hour and asking the  Lord to bless our efforts. But I want so much more than what I am able to create or even what I am able to dream about. Another honesty moment? I have to wonder if that's why women's retreat fell apart. In my narrowly focused mindset was I remembering to sit and seek out what it is God wanted the weekend to look like? After all, His plans are far better.

I yearn for those moments I find myself face down in the carpet. I pray daily that the Lord would break me and break those that are a parts of the ministries around me. Wreck us, Lord, that we might see You more clearly. My heart desires my prayer life to look like it did last summer-- that it is a daily begging of the Lord to speak through me and to push me through the day. I love that dependence. I pray we seek it out in all we do. Prayer is our most vital line of communication. I pray I make it my life source.

Just a thought. God is up to some amazing things. I can see them. May we daily be renewed by the transforming of our minds... daily find ourselves face down in the carpet.