A Lifestyle of Prayer

My parents are arriving tomorrow! I can't wait to see them, and be with them for eight days straight! What an absolute blessing!

Last night, I was feeling slightly under the weather, and was obviously particularly concerned because starting tomorrow, I need to be ON! I'm beginning to conclude that stomach "weirdness" is basically a constant while in Peru, but I definitely don't like it, and I definitely spend too much time worrying about being sick. This morning, I still felt tired and not quite right, so I took the morning to rest and try to sleep off whatever might be wrong with me. Around 11:30, I got myself up and decided to get to the office and get some things done. I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and fix my hair, and when I came back to my room to make my bed, I felt moved to first kneel before and pray. This wonderful, inner call to prayer isn't something that I typically experience, but I would like it to become as commonplace as eating and sleeping.

This past Sunday, I spent some time in San Blas, where I read a chapter of Henri Nouwen's Compassion. The chapter was called "Prayer," and Nouwen, in his oh-so-eloquent prose, explained that our current society doesn't view prayer as anywhere near as effective as action. Nouwen criticizes this societal view, and posits that sincere prayer is actually an act of the deepest kind of solidarity. When we pray deeply and sincerely, we make ourselves vulnerable to the sufferings of others, and experience them as our own. I would imagine that many of us who pray may not have had the experience of bearing the burdens of others as if they were truly "our own," but I think that Nouwen is referencing a sort of solidarity that only comes from prayer that is consistent and habitual. Often, my prayers are shallow and self-centered, and only at very occasionally points in my life have my prayers been frequent and consistent.

Nouwen also says that developing a habit of prayer is really difficult for us today because our society is so drawn to distraction--to magazines, music, television, conversations with friends. While none of these things are bad in and of themselves, there is something--and something important--to be said for moments of stillness. In my experience, these moments don't often appear before us, unless we happen to make a habit of standing alone on mountaintops or laying out and looking up at the stars. We must prioritize and seek out these moments, and use them to be in intimate communion with Christ. I'm no expert at this, obviously, but I absolutely want to be. I need to be.

Being alone in a foreign place reminds me not only of life's variety and beauty, but also of my great need for a Savior to be with me and share in my fears, my worries, my pains, my discoveries, my joys, and my questions. And so I will fall more readily on my knees in these coming weeks, and realize that, whether I feel the urge or whether there are lots of things I'd prefer to do, prayer is not so much an option as a necessity, and a gift from God to bring us closer to Him.

My favorite Bible verse is Exodus 14:14. "The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still." And yet the moments of true "stillness" in my life are few and far between. Please pray for me, friends and family, that I might be more diligent in finding and cultivating these moments of stillness so that prayer becomes a constant refuge and a daily source of peace. I will pray the same for you.

"To pray is to enter into a deep inner solidarity with all human beings so that in and through us they can be touched by the healing power of God's Spirit. When, as disciples of Christ, we are able to bear the burdens of our brothers and sisters of Christ, we are able to bear the burdens of our brothers and sisters, to be marked with their wounds, and even be broken by their sins, our prayer becomes their prayer, our cry for mercy becomes their cry." -Henri Nouwen, Compassion

"Prayer, as a discipline that strengthens and deepens discipleship, is the effort to remove everything that might prevent the Spirit of God, given to us by Jesus Christ, from speaking freely to us and in us. The discipline of prayer is the discipline by which we liberate the Spirit of God from our entanglement in our impatient impulses. It is the way by which we allow God's spirit to move freely." -Henri Nouwen, Compassion

In that last quote, I like to think that "moving freely" is an understatement...that through prayer, we allow God to DANCE within us...to manifest His will so fully that it doesn't just sit or walk within us, but dances a joyful dance as we go about spreading His love and seeking His face in our friends and our enemies.