Shh... Just Listen

Another week has gone by, with me not posting more often -- sorry! Sometimes it's hard to believe that ya'll really want to know that much about my life! But you keep telling me that you do, so I will honor you by posting again by Wednesday. There, now it has to happen  =)

This week has really flown by! Last week at this time, we were just getting back from Pella, Iowa, where we spend every other weekend. Ascent holds a prayer meeting/bible study at an old Catholic church there every  weekend, and we go up for the prayer meetings. These meetings are unique. We begin with worship and then move on to Gospel Contemplation, where Ryan or Jean (the directors) will read a passage from the Gospel aloud and invite the rest of us to meditate on it. After that time of centering, we have a break and then reconvene in a couple of smaller groups for the main part of the meeting -- listening prayer.

Usually we think of prayer as us talking to God, but in listening prayer, we reverse the roles and ask God to quiet our hearts so we hear Him talk to us. In each of the groups, everyone takes a turn sitting in the middle while everyone else prays for him or her, just listening and asking God to give us a thought for the person in the middle. The thought could be a verse of scripture, a song, a picture, a word, or just an impression. Then we share those thoughts with the person we're praying for and allow them to sit with God and decide what was from Him and what we kinda made up. The purpose of this kind of prayer is to encourage each other and also to learn what God's voice sounds like and how to listen for it. It's definitely a process of grace, but it is a great blessing!

 If you are skeptical or weirded out by the idea of listening prayer, I don't blame you! When I first heard of it several years ago, I didn't know what to think. It was different than anything I'd ever experienced and I had all sorts of questions: does God really talk to us that clearly? why would He? how do you know if the thought you have is from Him or from your own mind? The only reason I went to my first Ascent prayer meeting, called Encounter I AM, was because I trusted my friend Sara from high school, who had experienced a lot of blessing from listening prayer. But even though I decided God was probably big enough to speak to people through other people's thoughts if He wanted to, I was sure that He wouldn't want to do that for me.

Long story short, I was blown away by the power and love of God that I experienced the first time I participated in listening prayer the summer after my freshman year of college! I was the last person in our group to be prayed over, and I wasn't expecting to hear anything that was really personal. Maybe some generic stuff about God loving me, but nothing that was really specific to my life. Well, I was wrong. God gave those praying for me pictures that described the place I was at with indecision and disappointment with my major and reminded me that Jesus knew what He was doing and wanted me to trust Him and just BE with Him. They also shared with me a scripture that I had just been given by a friend and that had really been encouraging me lately. After this experience, I had to reevaluate my tiny idea of who God was and how He wanted to interact with me. It was seriously life-changing to realize the power and intimate love of our God all at the same time!

It took me several more prayer meetings for me to get over my fear actually sharing the things that God had put on my heart for others in our group, but eventually, sharing became as much of a blessing as receiving -- especially as people responded in ways that confirmed that God was speaking to them in the word or picture I'd shared.

Now, I just want to clarify that you don't just say whatever pops into your mind when you're praying over someone. If what you hear is contrary to the Bible or the character of God as revealed in the Bible, than it is obviously not from God and shouldn't be shared. You also never share something that you hear about a major life decision, like marriage or jobs or things like that. Even if those thoughts are from God, the person needs to hear those directly from God, not from you first. That being said, listening prayer is a practice of grace. You usually don't know if the picture or song or word in your head will mean anything to the person you're praying for, but you can share it anyway, just in case, and let them sit with God and decide. It's sometimes really fun to see how God will use what seems like silliness to one person to speak to someone else!

Anyway, I wanted to share with you all about listening prayer because the idea behind it -- that God uses our imaginations to communicate to and through us -- is something we'll be exploring a lot this summer. It's crazy all the ways that God will speak to us if we're open to listen! All the while that we are serving or learning or running this summer, we are practicing being aware of God's presence: how He's speaking to us, teaching us, or leading us to speak to others. We're not very good at it, but that's okay. God's patient =) And Christ invites us to this in John 15:4 when He says, "Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." 


So that's not at all what I was planning on sharing with you today, but that's what came out, and I'm glad! If you are freaked out by the idea of listening prayer, or just have questions about it, please don't hesitate to email me at lxpskr@dordt.edu. I won't be offended by your skepticism or curiosity.

Expect another post very soon -- one more about what's happening right now, and hopefully some pictures too =)

In honor of Father's Day and the reminder it gives of the importance of families, please remember the clients at HopeFaith who have very painful, broken family histories. Pray that God would heal those wounds with gifts of grace and forgiveness and satisfy them with His love.

Thanks brothers and sisters!

Psalm 68