On Prayer and Freedom

Something broke loose. Went unbounded and free, somewhere between ‘give us this day our daily bread’ and ‘forgive us our debts’ a light clicked on and darkness fled, though certainly it was fleeing all along. I can’t point only to these moments for the Word of God is working even when don’t see it at work like seeds left overnight to grow-- and the Spirit is like the wind, you don’t see it but you see and feel its results. 

The first hour was shared and reserved…quiet contemplation and quiet prayer and a tentative bowing before the King. As if it were fragile, as if God were a thing on a shelf, to be beheld through glass. I was sick that night, and my body -- this flesh -- protested my presence in such a set-apart place as that. It is not a thing to take lightly – this standing before, this walking into the presence of a holy God. It is enough to make the body tremble.

On the drive home later that morning after the hour had closed, a bald eagle, a great blue heron, a taste of grace, rising sun aglow -- red ember in ashen sky. It was not lost on me that the birds, though they have the gift of flight, are considered unclean by Levitical standards…and it vexed me as I wondered over and over again, why this image, birds glorious and beautiful and favored as they are in my mind’s eye would cause me such angst of heart.

The second hours in that consecrated room were shared days later with other three other young women who glow with the beauty of Christ, offering praises and confessions and supplications – intercession abounding for the peoples, the nations, the oppressed, the poor, the forgotten, the abused. I wanted to gather others with me to ask God on behalf of the ones I love and for whom I am heavy-hearted. On some level, I think I feared that God wouldn’t hear the prayer if it were just me beseeching with divided heart (grace was shrouded in my soul at that moment). But, I was encouraged, because together, we cried out for the laborers and for the peoples. We cried for God to step into the dark places and bring freedom and healing to the broken and lost. It is a tremendous thing to gather together in agreement for the glory of God in the name of Jesus for His purposes and for His creation and I know for certain that Christ was among us.

The third hours were alone two days later. Only the first of these hours was supposed to be solo, but the solitude was extended for God’s purposes. He had some chiseling and shaping to do on this piece of clay. In these early hours, there was an unveiling, that Christ’s sacrifice satisfies and completes the requirement for the intentional and the unintentional short-falling. In this room, from a small bench, Hebrews was speaking mysteries from the pages of scripture. The sacrifices of old were for intentional sin and for unintentional uncleanness, even that for which we are unaware. And the eagle and heron with blood red sun in ashen sky made sense. Mercy unbounded. Grace poured over and out like a waterfall and pooled about my feet. My left foot, barely resting on the mat grabbed hold of repentance, and repentance took hold of me.

The time I had spent that morning simply meditating on, praising, hallowing, lifting up and exalting the Name, and desiring His kingdom come and His will be done on earth as in heaven, had sunk deep into my soul revealing to me that God is able, and that I am not. That God is worthy and I am not except that He clothes me in the righteousness of Christ – and this not my own doing. It struck me forcefully, urging me to lay myself before Him, that He is indeed everything that He says He is…by the inspired Word and by the global revelation of His divine nature and eternal power. He, this same God who created the heavens and the earth and breathes spirit and life into flesh, fights on behalf of the vulnerable and crushed in spirit and the weak and the weary. And I was weary…weary, because I had been fighting my own battles, afraid of being vulnerable and mistreated, unable to love deeply and unable to be loved deeply because I was consumed with what I didn’t possess. And I was vulnerable, because I hadn’t been claiming Him as my shield and protection. And weak, because I wasn’t finding my strength in Him but instead was depending on self.

And the revelation has power not because it makes me feel better and loved, but because it is FREEDOM. That God is my protector, my advocate, my peace – that my life is hidden in Christ, means I can be vulnerable to love and to give and to serve without concern for self (O, that I would truly grasp this). It means I can rest from fighting so hard and getting nowhere.This is the release from self that is bigger than self. It’s not about me.

Of course, I, like most of the human race, have a short memory and I know I’m bound to find myself there again if I don’t daily acknowledge Him and offer myself up. I’m no better than the beloved people whom Moses led out of the wilderness and Joshua into the promised land who forgot the power of the mighty hand of God within such a short time (Moses was on that mountain for less than forty days and they shaped for themselves a forbidden thing – Forty days is a long time) These places we don’t come to in one fell swoop, but moment by moment and day by day as we choose one response over another, as we make choices to the left and to the right of His perfectly centered path.

But the rushing in of the spirit and the water and the cleansing is so powerful and mighty that it seems like a sudden overtaking. Grace and peace and love and mercy and goodness and richness beyond comprehension. I am overwhelmed by the Spirit changing this coldness, warming it by the fire of His Spirit, making the hardened spaces of my heart flesh again. Over and over again, He has proven His faithfulness to those who would dare to call Him LORD. May I, may We, not keep it to ourselves. Amen.