Tag: CPC

I am a pray-er, but I don’t feel like I’m a very good one.  I don’t keep lists of prayer requests for others or date them or write down answers when they come, and I feel guilty that I pray on the fly a lot.  I journal prayers, but honestly they’re pretty self-centered.  I think I’m inconsistent in my intensity and devotion to this practice.

The thing is, I (and I think many of us) compartmentalize prayer like a word picture I read recently.  We can see prayer like little squares of syrup in a waffle that don’t spill over into other squares.  Prayer is in this square, and not that square.  We’re precise.  We follow guidelines.  We’re, dare I say, stingy with our syrup.

But I have the privilege of being friends with a man who is a drench-the-waffle-with-syrup-and-have-it-sog-up-everything kind of pray-er.  Literally, anytime and ANYWHERE you see him, he will ALWAYS say, “Let’s have a prayer.”

He prayed with a friend of ours over the broccoli in the produce section of the grocery store.

He huddled up with a bunch of half-dressed men in the locker room at the pool.

He jogged around our church praying for us when we first moved to Minnesota.  He prays with our daughters in the middle of a crowded room, oblivious to all around him.

Here’s the thing.  For Roger, prayer is not a practice.  Not a thing he does.  Not a square of his waffle to be filled with syrup.  It’s part of who he is.

Who Roger is is someone deeply in love with, and constantly in conversation with his heavenly Father.

Roger shows me someone with…

• A posture of humility and dependence on God.  Someone whose life says “My God is big and I am small.”
• An understanding of the character of God – His power, mercy, sovereignty
• A perspective – an affirmation of who is ultimately in control.

Roger is about 587 years old, so he’s had lots of time to practice, but I wonder, at what point did this practice become a part of his personality?

What are ways you’ve found to incorporate prayer into the moments of your day?