Prayer in Light of Eternity

 With much gratitude, my friend Kerry Plantz has prepared this article on prayer.  I love the transparency she extends by sharing her story.  Your comments as always are welcome.  

     Conversation is a vital part of the human experience. To share life together we must communicate with one another, and the more often we do this, the closer we become. Through communication we can be known by the listener, and we are able to know others more deeply and intimately. Your usual blogger, Rhonda, has shared conversations with me and through that relationship we have learned we both have a deep love for Jesus, and both enjoy writing. She has asked me if I would be willing to write and share some of my thoughts with you. What an honor this is for me to enter into your space and become a little known, and hopefully offer a bit of hope and encouragement in the sharing.

     My name is Kerry, and I grew up in Seattle, Washington in the Pacific Northwest. I responded to Jesus’s loving kindness at age 7, and have been so deeply grateful for this relationship for the past 32 years of my life (yes, I know I just revealed my age. I am not ashamed to tell the years the Lord has blessed me with. I actually find great joy in the sharing and overcoming this cultural faux pas). To know my Savior and be known by Him is the greatest joy of my life. I ended up at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, and studied Family Ministry/Pre-Counseling, as well as receiving a Bible degree. Then went on to become a certified Biblical counselor, a pastor’s wife, and mother to three lovely kiddos.

     Through all of life’s twists and turns, all the mountain tops and valleys, one thing that I have enjoyed most in my faith and also struggled most deeply with is prayer. Conversation with the most-high God. I imagine many of you have experienced similar ups and downs in your walk with the Lord. In seasons of plenty there were times that prayer was scarce, we forget Him when we have no needs. In seasons of pain and trial prayer was fierce, a crying out for my daily bread if you will. In one season in particular, prayer went silent. My husband and I had been married for about 3 years, we had one child, and I was pregnant again. However, I knew something wasn’t right, and sure enough we lost the pregnancy, miscarriage. I remember weeks of physical pain on top of emotional pain, but the worst pain was in my soul, true spiritual pain over this loss. I couldn’t wrap my mind around why God would start a life, just to end it before it even left the womb. Friends had answers that didn’t help, some even hurt as they tried to find a way to explain this reality to me. “It’s just the body getting rid of imperfections, meaning there must have been something wrong with the baby, so your body took care of it”. What a terrible thing to say to someone who is losing a child from within. Anyway, this made it hard to pray because I didn’t understand God. How could a God who calls Himself “good” allow this to happen? This isn’t good. This is bad.

     I didn’t notice it right away because I don’t think it happened abruptly. I believe it was a slow fade out with the Lord and our conversations. Until one day I realized, we weren’t talking anymore, and I was starving for his comfort and love, but didn’t know how to get back into his courts, or worse, if I really wanted to go back now. It’s a truly painful place to be as a follower of Christ, to know what is true about Him, but not know how or if you believe it in light of your current circumstances. I spoke to my pastor about what was going on and he recommended a book on prayer. Well, I read that book, and then about 5 more to dive deep into the understanding of how do I get back there to the place I love.

At the end of the day, it was small baby steps of faith and obedience that brought me back into his courts. I wish I could tell you it was a simple algorithm, but I can’t because God is relational, and relationships are not formulaic. I remember the first steps were very rote, mechanical and repeated if you will. I would pray through the A.C.T.S. acronym beginning with adoration and what I knew to be true about who God was, and what was worthy of my adoration about Him. Then I would confess all my sins, even the ugly sin of doubt and pulling away from Him. Then thanksgiving for the wonderful things He was doing and blessing me with even though I was struggling in our relationship. Then finally supplication, this one was hard. This is where I wasn’t sure how to ask for anything because I wasn’t sure how or why He did what He does. But I would ask for simple things. Things like comfort in the midst of my grief, or a friend to share life with as we were moving and entering a new community. As I continued to pursue obedience in prayer, just like when you communicate with a person regularly, I began to return to my love and enjoyment of the presence of God and our conversations became freer and fuller in time. Finally, I was able to be honest about my disappointment, and He was able to comfort me in the loss and grief with the all-knowing comfort that only He could truly give me.

     Sometimes I meditate on the reality that there was a time in history when people didn’t have this access to the most-high God. They were not allowed to enter into his gates, they had to go through a priest and make sacrifices in order to be near Him. What a gift we have in Jesus that we can approach our Father with confidence, and as we do this we are received as daughters and sons because of what Jesus has done on our behalf.

When you think about eternity, you must think about your prayer life now. Imagine how great a moment it will be when you have cultivated conversations with the most high God in such a way that your entry into heaven will truly feel as though you are running to your Father, or best friend, or closest companion because you have had conversations for years with Him and know Him deeply and know that you are known and loved deeply in return! There is a song that I will often sing to remind myself to run to God in prayer when I feel my heart want to wander:

 

What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.

What a privilege to carry, everything to God in prayer.

Oh, what peace we often forfeit.  Oh, what needless pain we bear.

All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.

 

Have we trials and temptations?  Is there trouble anywhere?

We should never be discouraged, take it to the Lord in prayer.

Can we find a friend so faithful, who will all our sorrows share?

Jesus knows our every weakness, take it to the Lord in prayer.

 

What truth and understanding in these lyrics. That we are never on our own, we have access to the most high God, and He is able to carry our burdens, our fears, our pain, our worry. All we have to do is enter the gates. There are so many things we can pray for and about, so many passages that help guide us towards how to pray, and for what. But at the root, on the most basic level, the reality that we can have conversations with God whenever we need or want to should be enough to stir your heart to pray. He is a good father. He is the best listener. He is such a faithful friend to the sinner. He is a refuge and a strong tower. Take it to the Lord in prayer. My prayer today would be that this has encouraged at least one person to enter back into his courts, and take the baby step of faith back toward your Father in prayer. You won’t regret it. In fact, you will only benefit because He stands ready to run and greet you. 

“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and pray”

Luke 5:16 

“Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need”

Hebrews 4:16