Prayer … What Do You Want?

The women’s gathering was good but what happened at the end was even better! 
 
Two or three times a year our church hosts an evening just for the gals. There’s tables beautifully set, and an inspiring speaker; a great chance apart from the hustle of Sunday morning to get to know each other better. 
 
There were eight of us at my table. Three of the gals I knew and the others I hadn’t met yet. We chatted, ate and listened.
 
As the facilitator closed the meeting, she mentioned a room up front for any who would like prayer. Leaning over, the gal next to me said with bright eyes, “Our table should go to the prayer room and pray for each other.”
 
Different than the usual, “Good seeing you. Take care,” farewell, I expected.
 
It was a little outside the box, but I was game. “Yeah, sounds great!”  Quickly, before our table dispersed, we presented the idea and five of us headed to the front.
 
When we got to the room with two couches and a couple chairs, we pulled one to the middle and asked, “Who wants to be first?” A crazy question, considering there hadn’t been any explanation of what “first” would mean.
 
“Sue” stepped forward. “I’ll do It,” she said, plopping down in the chair looking up at the rest of us circling her.
 
I blurted, “Ok, Sue, what do you want???!!!”
 
She looked at me puzzled, scrunching her eyebrows. That was a strange way to put it. Not the typical prayer-line jargon she was used to.

“What do I want?”
 
“Yeah, what do you really want?”
 
At first, she said something spiritually acceptable, like, “Pray for my kids. This one is doing such and such and that one …” ect., ect.
 
Then she stopped and said, “Wait a minute. What I really want is for my marriage to be healed.”
 
I don’t know about you but when someone offers to pray for me, I don’t always say the first thing I think of. The first thing I “really want” I examen to see if it sounds spiritually minded enough and if I feel safe to put it out there for those praying for me to know. If it doesn’t, I push it aside and search for another that doesn’t seem selfish, worldly or ambitious.
 
We don’t trust our inner person. We’re suspicious, automatically thinking of ourselves as sinful and selfish. But if God is living inside of us. If the Spirit of Christ came to live in us at salvation and in our daily passion to love and honor him has been living there ever since, couldn’t that voice bubbling up from within be trustworthy?
 
What if instead of suspicion, the first impulse of the holy woman inside of us was welcomed with a warm smile instead of an accusing scowl at an innocent little girl bounding into the room by her disapproving step-mother? 
 
Sue shared what she really wanted was for her marriage to be healed.
Deb …  for God's touch to conceive another child.
Lisa …  strength and direction during the retirement transition she and her husband were wrestling through.
Amanda … direction for God’s purposes to be fulfilled in her frustrating, fuzzy career path.
Me … deliverance from paralyzing fear that I couldn’t do what the publisher had asked.
 
Could it be that the request whispered from our re-created in God center would be the one God would be most pleased with and possibly planted there himself?  Could we be courageous enough to believe and say it? 
 
Circling each one, we laid hands and prayed putting love and heaven in motion on each of our behalf's.
______
 
If you were in that room today and we were circling you in love and prayer and asked,
“_____, what do you want?”  What would you say?
 

~ Lori