A Life of Prayer – My Testimony

 

 

Before I share some of my testimony, a couple of comments. I am not very keen on teaching methodologies of prayer because “how to” approaches can become rote, legalistic, and are not, I think, relationally natural. If God is our Father, and if Jesus is our Elder Brother, and if the Holy Spirit lives within us, then conversation and communion with God and prayer in its many forms, is essentially organic. That being said, the Psalms provide 150 invitations to participate in prayer, along with many other prayers in the Bible. Also, as noted previously we have centuries of examples of prayer which are also invitations. The Scriptures ought to be our nexus for prayer, most Scriptures can be prayed in some fashion.

 

There are indeed principles in prayer, and models, Jesus speaks of these, but they are not mechanical but found in the context of filial relationship and servanthood.

 

Andrew Murray has two devotional books on prayer, each consisting of 31 days, With Christ in the School of Prayer and With Christ in the School of Intercession. These books contain daily Scripture readings with Murray’s reflections on how they speak to us of prayer. Because they are rooted in Scripture and point us to Jesus, they are foundational. Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence presents an organic and relational approach to praying as a way of life.

 

Now I want to share just a little about my life of prayer, and I’m going to use the workplace as my setting. Let me first say that I am a very imperfect person. I can be harsh, I can be angry, I can be abrupt, I can be sarcastic, I can be a real jerk. Thanks to the grace of God and the Holy Spirit I know what it is to apologize and ask forgiveness in the workplace. As I look back over my life in the workplace, I see times when I should have apologized and asked forgiveness but didn’t, I see things clearer now with advancing age. I see so many times I failed to abide in the Vine and missed opportunities to be a blessing to others and be a better testimony for Jesus.

 

Yet, I truly loved my people, both my direct reports and the people who worked for them. I loved my coworkers, and I worked with contractors whom I loved and had great affection for. I often took opportunities at large employee gatherings to not only share Jesus, but to tell my people that I loved them. I prayed with many people I worked with and received prayer requests from many more. It got to the place where folks expected me to pray for them when there was sickness or tragedy in their families. I have now been retired from business for over seven years, and I still receive prayer requests from former coworkers.

 

When a contractor’s father was in the hospital, I visited him and prayed with him. When another contractor was in the hospital for heart surgery, I was there to pray. When I visited apartment communities, it was not unusual for me to pray with my managers and others in their offices, and pray with residents of the communities, or with contractors doing work in the communities. When people had needs, I prayed. Sometimes I took their prayer requests, and other times we prayed on the spot.

 

I believed that my first calling was to be the Presence of Christ and to serve those around me.

 

I would pray for all the people in the office I worked in by visually walking down the hall and going into each office, I’d visualize the person and pray for him or her. I would also pray for their families and any specific needs I knew about. This is a practice (a method I guess!) that I used for decades.

 

If I had special meetings scheduled on a particular day, I’d pray for those meetings ahead of time, asking for wisdom, asking for help in preparation, asking to be a blessing to others in the meetings. During meetings I would also pray, asking my Father and Lord Jesus for wisdom, for peace, for grace and favor.

 

I had some particularly difficult clients, and meetings could be tense and stressful, but Jesus was always with me and I was always communing with Him during my meetings – this was my way of life in Him. I wanted my work to glorify God, to serve my clients, to serve my company, and to bless my employees and residents.

 

I worked in some fairly dangerous areas in housing, places where there was significant drug dealing, where people were shot and killed in broad daylight. I prayed for my people, the residents, and for my own safety when I walked those streets. Once, when I was inspecting a property with staff members and a representative from a state housing agency, we sought refuge in a vacant townhouse because of gunfire, gunfire which killed a drug dealer in a spot I had just walked by not less than 5 minutes before.

 

I was never afraid for myself, I was cautious but not afraid, my life belonged to Jesus. I was, however, often fearful for my people…and I prayed and prayed and prayed for them, and for the residents. Most folks living in difficult places are fine people, people who love their families and who do right by their neighbors, often working 2 or 3 jobs – it is a tragedy that they are marginalized by others in society and in the professing church. Shame on us.

 

Praying during conversations with others was a way of life for me, I was always asking my Father how I could be a blessing to the other person, how I could share the love of Jesus. O for sure there were times I missed opportunities. Sometimes I realized missed opportunities immediately, other times not until I’d arrived home. I can be dense and stupid and self – centered. When I am tired, I am more likely to miss a nice pitch over the plate than when I’m fresh. When I am in a hurry, I am more likely to miss being a blessing because I can be caught up in my own agenda rather than God’s. When I am stressed I can be particularly self-centered and not be attuned to the needs of others. All the more reason to live a life of prayer, for when my communion with God is interrupted by my foolishness, I am more likely to quickly sense it and ask God for help.

 

I believed the Trinity lived in me because this is what Jesus teaches in the Upper Room. The workplace was where God had me, and He had me there to serve others and be His Presence. I was willing to be misunderstood because of my rather simple faith, and I was also willing to take the heat for refusing to lie or place spin on problems and insisting on treating everyone with equity and respect, including paying them decent wages. I have put my job on the line for my employees more than once over the years – after all, I was in the workplace not to be served, but to serve.

 

I had a successful career, and better than that, I had a good testimony within my industry. My peers respected me and trusted me and honored me in a number of ways over the years. Of course, had the quality of my work not been superior, had I not offered my work to God, the story would no doubt have been different. My work was a form of worship, and the workplace was a place of spiritual formation to me, and then it was a place of witness for Jesus. God was always forming me into His image at work, and He was always using me as His Presence in the lives of others.

 

Since we have this treasure in jars of clay (2 Cor. 4:7), I realized that there was no need for me to pretend to be something I wasn’t, I could trust God to make it clear that any success I had was to His glory…and as I wrote above, I know what it is to apologize and ask forgiveness at work. When I made a relational mess of things, I saw it as an opportunity to make amends, to ask forgiveness, and to show the world that in Jesus relationships can be restored – the world does not see that very often. I do not recommend that we deliberately make asses of ourselves in order to share what reconciliation looks like in Jesus, but if we do make asses of ourselves, let us not waste the opportunity to be witnesses for Christ, to show others Jesus as the better Way to live.

 

I spent my days at work speaking to our Father and listening to Him, praying for others and looking for ways to serve them. I loved being with my people and coworkers. I loved being part of a team. I loved watching people grow.

 

I have had many people influence my understanding of our abiding in Christ, many of them lived long before me, and a few I have personally known. I am convinced that Jesus’ relationship with the Father is to be our relationship with the Father, I hope we are seeing this as we travel through the Upper Room, and I sure hope we see this when we move into the Holy of Holies of John Chapter 17.

 

There is no joy quite like the joy of praying with friends, where one minute you can be talking and the next naturally praying together. I have been blessed to have friends like these, even though with advancing age more of them are moving ahead of me into the City – but what shall it be like when we are all there! I trust those who have gone before are continuing to pray for me, I surely need it.

 

If we are going to spend eternity with our Father, doesn’t it make sense to spend our days with Him now? In much the same way, I once sensed our Father saying to me, “Bob, instead of thinking in terms of a prayer life, wouldn’t it be better if you learned to live a life of prayer? Instead of thinking in terms of intercessory prayer, wouldn’t it be better if you learned to live an intercessory life?”

 

Of the many influences I’ve had in my life of prayer, outside of the Bible Francois Fenelon may be the most vital, and since he influenced Andrew Murray this gives Fenelon a place of double honor. Fenelon’s life and writings speak to me many ways and continually bid me come up higher and deeper into Jesus. Fenelon is a great model for people in leadership in business, education, politics, and of course the church, for he served in the court of the Sun King, Louis IX, and influenced many at the pinnacle of power in the French court.

 

Fenelon was banished to his diocese for his refusal to abandon his friend, Jeanne Guyon, and his refusal to deny his understanding of our life in Christ. We must be willing to follow the Lamb wherever He goes, including in rejection (Hebrews 13:13). If we are not willing to be sacrifices for Christ and others we’ll never truly witness and our faithfulness to Jesus will always be contingent on ourselves – an unstable foundation, don’t you think?

 

Fenelon taught me to pray and listen to God while in conversation with others. I don’t recall how it began, but now it is as natural as breathing and I have not thought about it for many years, it is just what I do. I find great joy in listening to others and listening to God at the same time. We all do it, the question is how we do it. We’ve all been in a restaurant and engaged in conversation with a friend, while at the same time listening to a discussion at an adjacent table. Might it be more fruitful to listen to our friend and God?

 

Lives of prayer begin in the morning, when the page of the day is blank. We allow the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to make the first impressions on our hearts, minds, and souls. The only thing we should turn on may be the coffee pot as we began our daily conversation with God. No phone, no email, no radio, no TV, no news…just us and God…once the day begins this way it can continue this Way. There is only one first impression each day…ought it not be that of the holy Trinity?

 

My first mentor was George Will. George talked to God all the time, sometimes his conversations where quiet and within himself, and many times they were vocalized as naturally as if Jesus was right with us – which of course He was. He was like that in 1966 when I first met him, and he was still like that around 2012 when I last spoke with him over the phone. I imagine some folks thought him a bit crazy. Well, Jesus’s family and friends thought He was a bit touched too (Mark 3:20 – 21). Not bad company George, not bad company.

 

Much love,

 

Bob