The Prayer Room

This morning I was back reading through some of the notes I wrote on Facebook back in college before the blog. Today it was one called "Will you keep running?"

Back during the second half of my college career I got involved with a prayer group. We would meet Sunday nights in an on campus apartment for a few hours and seek God together. Once a year during J-term we would do weeks of 24/7 prayer in our on campus prayer room. People would sign up to take an hour at a time and for that hour go to the on campus prayer room and spend the time connecting with God, crying out to him for their own life, the campus, community, country and world. For weeks there was constant prayer being offered to God.

This is one of the things I miss most about college. That place of prayer, that place devoted to prayer. It was a room that freed you from distractions and helped you to focus on God and connect with Him in a variety of ways, art, writing, music. As I read the note I wrote a little over five years ago it hit me just how big of a part of my life that room was during my last two years of college. There was one week I spent more time in prayer than I did doing anything else, including sleep.

As I read what I had written and the comments people had made I began to remember just how incredible those moments were. There were times very early in the morning, that I would be there just in a time of worship to God. There is something about a place like that, a place that has been soaked with prayer, that almost makes it easy to talk to God. And that is what I miss most.

I don't have a place like that anymore. I haven't had it for a while, basically four years. It's not that I haven't prayed in that time, but at times it's been hard. There is something about a place that is devoted to prayer. There is something about going somewhere intentionally to communicate with God.

In Jerusalem, the Temple was that place. In January I began to grasp just how big this place was. It was one of those things that didn't hit me until round two when I got to walk under the streets along the length of the Western Wall. But that's not important. The point was not the size and grandeur of it all, but the fact that it was where God would meet the people.

2 Chronicles 7.12-16 shares of the account when the Temple was dedicated, and the words God spoke to Solomon, "Then the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him, 'I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place. For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that My name may be there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.'"

It is not saying that God only heard prayers offered in the Temple. You do not need to be in a sanctuary or prayer room for God to listen to you, but there is something to be said about having a place dedicated to prayer. In a house there are rooms dedicated to cooking and eating, to living and laundry, to sleep and recreation. What about prayer? In an office building there are rooms set aside for work, breaks, and meetings. What about prayer? Do we have specific places that we have set aside to meet with God?

In college we had a room set aside for prayer, and I miss that. I think the world needs more prayer rooms, and people committed to filling them with heartfelt cries to God and attentive ears to hear from Him.

"I have been young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread."

To God alone be the Glory!

Peace be with you

Religious or Relational?

As a Christian are you religious or are you relational? Do you walk through the practices of a religion, or do you grow deeper in a relationship? Is is something you do, or is it something you are part of? Can you do both?

Jesus never called us to be a part of a religion. I do not think that what Western Christianity has become is what he had in mind 2000 years ago. Jesus did not go around saying to people, "Hey, I'm going to start this thing called Christianity. In it we meet Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday evening. We get together for an hour at a time, talk about something I said, and then go home and chill until the next meeting. You should check it out." As he walked along the dusty roads of the Middle East his message was not one of mediocrity, but one of urgency, "Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is near!" His message did not call us to simply walk along the shore of a shallow gently flowing creek, but to dive into the middle of a rapidly flowing river.

Christianity was not intended to be a religion. In a religion you can walk through the motions, unaware of what it going on. It is so easy to get caught in a routine and simply go with the flow. This is the ticket to heaven idea, you get saved to not go to hell, and that's all it is about. But this thing called Christianity is so much more than that. We are pardoned to participate as my theology teacher so frequently said. Salvation is not fire insurance, it is a passport, it calls us to go, it allows us to be involved, not in a religion, but in a relationship. If you are really in a relationship you can't just walk through it mindlessly. You cannot simply go through the motions, a relationship takes more than that, it requires more than that.

A relationship demands that we actively engage in it daily, that we don't settle with and grow complacent, but that we hunger and yearn to make it last, to grow closer to the one we are in a relationship with. You have to be starving for it. I have heard people quote verses from Jeremiah 29, "Seek me and you will find me" and James 4, "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you," they sound so simple, but that is not the entirety of the verses. We leave off the parts that call us to action, that call us out of religion and into relationship.

Jeremiah 29.13, "You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart."

James 4.8, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded."

We are called to action, we are called to do something. God says, "I want you, I want you so badly. I sent my son to die on a cross for you. But because of that, you need to want me just as badly. You need to chase after me like I have chased after you. You need to pursue me like I have pursued you. Nothing less than all of you will work."

The steps of the Temple in Jerusalem were built in an awkward way. If you look at them you would think a drunk man built them. But they were built that way on purpose. The way the steps were built you could not run up and down them hurrying in and out of the Holy place of worship. You had to focus on each step, because if you didn't you could easily loose your balance and fall. You had to intentionally go up the steps, you had to focus on what you were doing. It took time to get to there, but that was the point. They had to to want it, they had to mean it.

Christianity was never intended to be something that was done half-hearted. The early followers lived knowing they could be put to death, they were serious about the relationship they were a part of, a relationship we are called to be part of.

Alvin Reid said, "Living the Christian life is not hard. It is impossible unless we do it with God's strength." The beauty of a relationship is that we are not in it alone. We are not walking into new territory that has never been explored. Jesus said that his yolk is light, a yolk is made for two, he is there to carry it with us. The journey we're are on, that journey that leads to the throne of God, is one that Christ walked first. The cross of Jesus paved the way back to the father.

Christianity was never intended to be something we could simply walk through and go through the motions. It was, and remains to be, something that requires all of us. Paul said in Philippians 3,

"But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

I think that is what Christianity is about. So are you practicing a religion or are you engaged in a relationship?