Prayer

When I was preparing to come to Sierra Leone, one of the things that I was excited about was around people who are so focused on prayer and make it a priority in their lives. Prayer is something I want to learn more about and to spend more time recognizing that prayer is having a conversation with God.

Mama Angie, the country director, is an amazing prayer warrior. When she prays, I often get a little teary-eyed because her prayers are so powerful and Spirit-filled that she seems to know exactly what to pray for. Prayer is the start of everything here: school starts with prayer, I wake up to the kids praying and singing in the morning, meetings are started with prayer. I love it . . . having that continual reminder that the Lord longs to be part of our daily lives.

Knowing that I wanted to learn more about prayer this year, I brought along this book with me called the Praying Life. I started reading it this weekend, and it has been such an encouragement to me. One of the things that has really stood out is the author talks about childlike faith and how that relates to prayer. Children don’t try to think of eloquent words as they pray to make their prayers sound good, they just simply say what is on their hearts and on their minds. When children ask things, they come across as completely vulnerable to their parents and completely dependent on them. And how often we don’t pray because we are afraid of being vulnerable. Here are some quotes from the book that I love:

• “Desire and surrender are the perfect balance to praying.”
• “If you are going to enter this divine dance we call prayer, you have to surrender your desire to be in control, to figure out how prayer works.”
• “Learned desperation is at the heart of a praying life.”
• “Asking in Jesus’ name isn’t another thing I have to get right so my prayers and perfect. It is one more gift of God because my prayers are so imperfect.
• “We shy away from prayers that invite God to rule our lives. They make us vulnerable.”

When they pray here, everyone prays at the same time out loud, and it is a practice that I have grown to love. We all join together with our voices to lift up the different requests that are mentioned. It helps me focus to pray out loud, and I love hearing the different things that are said all around me.

I also have been doing a Beth Moore Bible study, Believing God, and this week we have been talking about praying the Scriptures for different people in our lives. I love the concept of this idea and praying continually the same Scripture verse for my friends and family. God has definitely been trying to get my attention to change my heart on prayer and to help me realize how important it is in my life. I hope that it is something that will be imprinted on my heart so that I can take it back to America with me.