Last night at church I mentioned to one of the many people who asked me to update them on Amy that I was praying for strength a lot these days. He said perhaps I should start praying for something else. He theorized in our case God seemed to be taking a "no pain, no gain" approach toward strength training.
He was joking...I think.
Lately though I have been wondering about prayer and the particulars
One of the Sunday traditions in our church is to voice our prayer concerns. Some people are quite brief, simply asking for prayer for a friend or loved one with little or no explanation. In church, I fall into that category. Others can go into great detail about ailments, work problems, fears, and frustrations.
No matter how it's done, I cherish this time, although not everyone in our church family feels the same about it. Some folks feel that many of the details are unnecessary. They cringe when someone starts explaining the intricacies of a medical malady or the nuances of their financial misfortunes.
I had a friend at church tell me that she believed we should restrict the prayer requests to something along the lines of, "Please pray for Bill" or
"keep the Main family in your prayers." She said, "God knows the details."
I guess that's so, but I have to disagree. Some of these intimate moments of sharing are used to unfetter my friends from heavy loads they carry. In turn they are lifted up. Who better to hold them; who better to nurture and calm them; who better than us...the body of Christ?
Certainly God knows my heart, knows my needs, knows my every desire before I do. However I also believe God wants us to engage Him...often and unashamedly. I suspect God wishes we'd communicate with Him a lot more and leave nothing out. In my moments alone with God I ramble and rage. At times I bellow and beg. I hold nothing back.
I simply can't believe the Creator of time itself has any need for the Reader's Digest condensed version.
Psalm 105:4Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always.
