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Copyright © 2000-2007
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©1993 By Karen Scalf Linamen
Published by Fleming H Revell a division of Baker Book House Company
Reprinted by permission for the author.
Karen is the author of 8 books including "Just Hand Over the Chocolate and
No One Will Get Hurt" and writes a weekly humor column, "The Funny
Farm," published online at www.women-of-faith.com.
When I was growing up, my favorite time to pray was late at night, when my sisters were asleep and my parents had either gone to bed, or perhaps were on the final dregs of a late-night movie or news show before turning in for the evening.
Sometimes I would lay in bed and pray. Often I would kneel by the side of my bed. Many times I laid face down on the carpet and poured out my heart before the Lord. There’s a sweetness in our intimate moments with God alone. To be sure, a vibrant prayer life is built on exchanges such as these.
And yet there is no denying that God wants us to bring other people into our prayer life, whether we are praying for ourselves, friends, spouses, our country, or our children. Jesus Christ makes this clear in Matthew 18:19-20 when He instructs that “if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by My Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in My name, there am I with them.”
I know that each of us has participated in corporate prayer in church services, before meals, in school chapels. In fact, I recently had a chance to take part in a moment of corporate prayer at the opening of— of all things — a rodeo I attended with my family here in Texas.
But take another look at Matthew 18:19. Note the implied intimacy. The verse specifies numbers. And those numbers are small. Real small.
In a group of two or three, there’s no hiding among the crowd. You can’t fade into the woodwork. And, in a small group, it’s a lot harder to let your mind roam to planning dinner, rebuilding the car engine, or redecorating your living room. Of course, because groups of two and three are so intimate, they can be threatening too.
And yet, when we pray in small groups — baring our souls and our secrets, our fears and our joys — we are enriched in ways that we cannot experience when we pray alone, and certainly are not likely to attain through the brief and formalized prayers of large masses.
It’s called accountability.
I like the frank comment of my friend Cherie Spurlock. The mother of two boys and a girl—a teen, adolescent, and kindergartner — Cherie meets weekly with a friend from church for the express purpose of praying for their children. Sheri also doesn’t mince words: “Face it! We’re lazy and we just don’t do it,” she told me rather matter-of-factly one day over the phone. “On our own, we get distracted by the jillion and one things going on in our lives. At least for me, knowing that a friend is coming over today at 1, for example, helps me to budget my time and really spend that time praying specifically for the kids.”
In our fast-paced lives, there’s so little opportunity for intimacy, isn’t there? So few chances for intimate connection with another human being. Instead, we make time for projects and activities and all the things on our “to do” lists. We make time for work and for laundry and for television and for cooking and even for church. But even church — where everyone is dressed in their Sunday best, sitting among a crowd, listening to a sermon pumped through a loudspeaker—is not intimate.
And yet, intimacy is so important. After all, as Charles Swindoll observed during one of his radio broadcasts, we impress people at a distance.., but we impact them one on one.
We crave that kind of impact, don’t we? In our marriages, with our friends, with our children, in our churches, with God, we are hungry for intimacy. And yet we continue to pack our schedules with the kinds of circumstances that sabotage closeness. We rush around, we worship in large packs, and we work hard to keep our conversations on a superficial level that masks our truest feelings and deepest pain.
Several months ago, I agreed to teach a new evening Bible study at our church. In the beginning, I admit that I was a little disappointed by the size of the group — each week, between five and eight women meet in the fellowship hall for a two-hour session that includes prayer, reviewing our answers to a home Bible study lesson, and a brief lecture which I give.
Now I look back on my initial disappointment, and I shake my head.
In a larger group, it would have been unwieldy to go for cotTee and pie after the Bible study, or to meet before work in the morning for breakfast. In a larger group, it would have been so much easier to maintain sterling images and hands-off facades. And in a larger group, we probably wouldn’t have begun sharing the kinds of intimate prayer requests that allowed acquaintance to develop into friendship.
Now, when I think about the members of our small group, I am familiar with at least one personal struggle, temptation, or disappointment that each woman has shared — and they know some of mine, as well. We encourage each other and pray for one another — real prayers about real needs. And it simply couldn’t have happened in a larger group.
When a friend shared with me that she struggled with a ci~ addiction left over from her pre-Christian days, she did so tears in her eyes. “I’m such a bad person,” she told me. “I hardly bear to go to church — I’m so afraid that someone will out that I smoke and realize how horrible I am. I don’t there — I don’t know how God puts up with me.”
Another woman, whom I’ll call Gail, was slow to tell about a traumatic family crisis. Gail’s son, Scott, had been in church and youth groups since he was small. He’d attended Christian college, sung in the church choir, and dated a Christ• girl. There had been no clues whatsoever to prepare his parents the afternoon he stood in the kitchen and announced that he gay, that he had AIDS, and that he was dying. Gail admits that.• the beginning, she was afraid to tell other believers what family was facing. She was afraid of judgment and rejection.
When we share intimately in prayer, there is, unfortunately, always the possibility that someone will recoil, appalled: “Y4 son has what?” Or even to condemn: “Did you say c~ And yet there is no better opportunity for each of us to being like Christ, mirroring His unconditional love for those ~c hurt or struggle.
There is healing when we share our deepest secret with a ‘ci partner, and that partner still loves us. When that happens, it’s littler easier to believe that God, who we can’t see, can love us thai way too.
I know what it’s like, when praying by myself, to almost feel th arms of God giving me a hug at a moment when I need it most But sometimes that’s not enough, is it?
Last week I picked my daughter up a few minutes late froni school. After claiming Kaitlyn and her friend from the “pick-up’ point for tardy mothers and car-pool drivers, I popped my head into the kindergarten classroom to wave a greeting to Debbie Sims, Kaitlyn’s teacher.
Debbie looked up and smiled. It was a feeble smile.
“You OK?” I queried. “You look tired or something.”
“Oh, just one of those days,” she admitted. Then she sighed. “You might pray for me, if you think about it. In a few minutes I’m having a meeting with a parent.., and it’s going to be a tough one.~~
I nodded, then turned to go. My hand was on the classroom doorknob when I turned and retraced my steps. Quickly, I wrapped my arms around Debbie’s shoulders and prayed aloud for God to give her wisdom and strength and sense of renewal in her spirit. Then I gave her a big hug and started to leave again.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “I really needed that,” she said. There were tears in her eyes. But then, there were tears in mine too.
I imagine that Mary, Jesus’s mother, knew what it was like to get a hug from God. In the early years, it might well have been a hug from a God with small grubby hands and a dead frog in the front pocket of his tunic — ah, but what a hug. There were others, like Mary, during the life of Christ who knew what it was like to get a touch — a real touch — from God Himself.
Perhaps, with a little help from our friends, we can know what it feels like too.
The person you choose as a prayer partner can enrich or detract from your time together in prayer, so it is important to put some thought into your selection. This is particularly true if you will be praying about highly personal or confidential issues! Not every believer is mature enough to handle the sensitive issues in your life and in the lives of your children in a godly manner.
When I am considering a prayer partner, I keep the following guidelines in mind. Remember, these are guidelines, not laws. How cautious you are in selecting a partner depends on the nature of the matters you’ll be sharing in prayer. Selecting someone with whom to pray regarding your son’s grade point average, for example, will require much less caution than the selection of someone with whom to pray regarding your daught addiction or your son’s homosexual lifestyle.
With this in mind, consider teaming up with someone who demonstrates the following traits.
One day I received a phone call from a close friend I’ll call Laura. She was crying. “I need to ask your forgiveness,” she blurted through her tears. “I’ve done something really awful.”
She went on to tell me about a conversation she’d had that morning with another woman from her church. Laura, struggling with an attraction to a married man, had decided to approach a godly woman and friend and ask if they could pray together about her struggle. She’d spent the morning at the home of this friend, where she had tentatively broached the subject.
“I didn’t know how to bring up the matter,” Laura confessed to me over the phone. “Then I remembered that you had written an article on this subject, and that you once had a similar experience. So I mentioned this to my friend as a way of explaining what I was feeling, and. . .
Laura’s sobs broke anew. “I’m really sorry. I never should have mentioned your article or your experience. I didn’t even mention your name, but this other woman got really angry anyway. She said I shouldn’t have mentioned anyone else. She said I was gossiping. She said I needed to ask your forgiveness. She said she couldn’t believe I’d talk about someone else like that. I felt so humiliated and embarrassed. I left as soon as I could, but driving home, I began to think she was right. I had to call you right away. I’m so sorry.., can you ever forgive me?”
“Laura, did she ever say anything about your struggle? You told her you were struggling. Did she ever talk about that?”
Laura was still tearful. “N . . . no. All she talked about was how horrible i was for gossiping.”
Laura’s friend had created an effective smokescreen — at Laura’s expense! Unable to cope with Laura’s pain and transparency, this friend had diverted the encounter onto “safer” ground, judging and convicting Laura for “gossiping” rather than dealing with the greater issue. “How” Laura had shared her story, rather than “what” Laura was sharing, had become the focus. The deeper —and more important issue — had been sidestepped neatly.
When looking for someone with whom to share the more vulnerable aspects of our lives, it’s important to select someone who knows what it’s like to feel vulnerable! Someone who understood how scary it is to bare a soul would never have reacted in that manner to Laura.
Later Laura acknowledged that, in all their relationship, this friend had never shared anything vulnerable or intimate from her own life. This could have been Laura’s first clue that this woman might panic when faced with Laura’s vulnerability and transparency.
The cross sharing of vulnerability is crucial in the development of intimacy — and praying with someone about your heartfelt needs, concerns, and fears is, if anything, intimate!
Psychotherapist Novlyn Hinson has shared that, even in therapy, the exchange of transparency can build trust and intimacy. She explains: “Sometimes, if I am faced with a client who is struggling to open up and talk about his issues, I’ll drop my guard a little. I’ll share something from my own life. As I become transparent, I’ve entrusted him with something intimate from my own life. He may feel, in turn, that I can be trusted with his transparency, as well.”
I do this in my friendships at times. If I sense that a friend is burdened about something — that she isn’t sure that she can talk to me about it — I’ll look for an opportunity to share something personal of my own. It sounds manipulative — and it could be, if the message I am sending by my transparency were a lie. But it’s not. By my transparency, I am saying — and with all sincerity — “Our friendship is a safe place in which to share burdens. I can trust you with this personal part of my life.., and you can trust me too.”
Colleen is a good friend who brims with entertaining tales from the lives of other people, some of whom I know, most of whom I have never met. There is nothing malicious in her stories — she just can’t keep a secret.
One night Larry and I were driving home from an evening with Colleen and her husband when Larry spoke the words that were on my mind as well: “Gee, I wonder if she talks about us behind our backs?”
I have shared personal issues with Colleen, and we’ve prayed together about struggles in her life and in mine. But in choosing what personal issues to share with Colleen, I keep in mind the fact that while Colleen has many wonderful traits, confidentiality might not be one of them!
Don’t set yourself up for disillusionment, embarrassment, and even bitterness by sharing highly sensitive prayer concerns with friends who may not be discreet with your problems. Look for discretion in the prayer partner with whom you choose to share your more intimate concerns. By the same token, when someone shares something sensitive with you, remember the need for discretion. Private matters shared before God in prayer are not for the public ear!
When selecting a prayer partner, look for someone with a solid, working knowledge of the Bible. Someone with obvious theological misperceptions may be prone to cause more confusion than good!
One of my friends, for example, believes that nothing in the Old Testament applies to Christians today; another has bought into the “name it, claim it” philosophy that wealth and riches are due every believer just for the asking. When my mother-in-law was stricken with cancer, someone told her that she must have some unconfessed sin in her life. Still another friend has swung to the other extreme, believing that miracles and healings are no longer among God’s options for Christians today.
When we pray, our prayers are most effective when they are in sync with God’s Word and His will — choose a prayer partner whose prayers can reflect the character and nature of the God we serve.
We each have sinned.., and we continue to struggle with the temptation to sin. Yet sin that remains unconfessed and unforgiven in our lives will hinder our prayers. When selecting a prayer partner, be aware of areas of unconfessed sin in her life. One woman I know is living with her boyfriend — we pray together, but our prayers are usually centered around issues in her life. I suspect that the rebellion in her life renders her less than effective when it comes to interceding. In the future, as this friend deals with her heart and regains a right relationship with God, she may well become a powerful prayer warrior. The conquest of our darkest sides and deepest struggles, after all, is the fodder which God uses to nurture great spiritual growth and insights. But today, at this juncture in her life, this friend is someone I can pray with and for. I might also choose other prayer partners who can help me intercede for my family.
If possible, choose someone who prays and who is familiar with the power of prayer. Another option is to select, as a prayer partner, someone who has not, in the past, spent a lot of time in prayer, but who has a desire to incorporate more prayer into his or her life. In this respect, you and your partner can keep each other accountable in your shared goal to spend more time in prayer.
Where can you find someone with whom you can share your prayer life? The possibilities are endless, and they begin right in your own home.
In their book, If Two Shall Agree (Grand Rapids: Baker/Revell, 1992), Carey Moore and Pam Rosewell Moore talk about the adventure they embarked on when they began, in the days of their courtship and through the early years of their marriage, to pray together every day.
The Moores give numerous reasons why a husband and wife who are believers might want to incorporate joint prayer into their busy lives. One reason is simply that it makes for a better marriage.
As one woman, quoted in their book, observed: “We have never seen a couple we knew, one who prayed together regularly, encounter serious marital difficulties. It’s that simple . . . and yet that profound.”
Pam writes:
We do not make it a daily prayer that God will protect our marriage from prevailing danger, but we do make it a frequent one. We bring our vows to mind in a number of ways. Sometimes we repeat our formal marriage commitment to each other to remind us of our binding promise. At other times I look at Carey’s wedding ring and rehearse privately the promise I made when I placed it on his finger.
We two disciples remember another disciple who failed the Lord when he was sure he would not. “I’ll never deny You, Lord!” Peter promised. But Peter broke his promise, and we remind ourselves of the warning Jesus gave him, “Watch and pray, so that you will not enter into temptation.”
Carey writes about a woman who prays with her husband twice a day — after breakfast and before bed — as a way of making Christ the center of their home. He then adds:
To place Christ at the center of our homes means, of course, to tell Him, “You are our God,” not just at prayer time but all day long. I cannot be careless or insensitive in what I say to Pam and then pray with her. Nor can either of us treat anyone else rudely or engage in gossip and criticism, or allow conceit and pride to rule our relations with others, and expect God to hear our prayers at the end of the day.
What a wonderful thought it is that, in addition to all the other benefits of praying with someone, we might strengthen our marriages as well! And especially for parents who want to impact their children’s lives through prayer, it is wise to remember that a strong marriage is one of the best possible gifts we can give our children.
After all, our marriages help shape the emotional and psychological development of our children.
Our marriages also provide the blueprints for what our children will look for and expect from their own marriages.
Finally, our marriages set the tone in our homes, creating the environment in which our children will either be drawn to spiritual things by our examples, or driven away from God.
Buzz Moody’s daughter Lindsey recently graduated from high school. Buzz remains in association with Moms in Touch — this time as the leader of a MIT chapter at the elementary school where her youngest daughter — and my daughter, Kaitlyn — attend. Moms in Touch is one of the options for parents in search of a small group environment. (For information about MIT, or to join or start a chapter near your home, write Moms in Touch, P.O. Box 1120, Poway, CA 92074 or call 1-800-949-MOMS.)
Friends, Dan and Kathy Hamer, whose son suffers with a condition doctors are still trying to diagnose, found small group support when they began to attend a prayer group for parents of chronically ill children.
Small group prayer can be organized around any common ground. You can probably name a dozen parents with whom you have something in common — perhaps you all have preschoolers, or are raising your children as single parents, or are battling substance abuse in the life of one of your children. Some of these parents might grasp at the idea of joining you, in your home or theirs, for prayer on behalf of your and their children.
Before she began praying with friend Cindy Beaton, Cherie Spurlock had heard about Moms in Touch and considered joining. Instead, she and Cindy decided to tailor a weekly prayer time that was better suited to their schedules and their particular needs. Their friendship had served as the foundation for their time together in prayer — and yet before long, their time together in prayer became the foundation for an even deeper friendship.
According to Cherie, one of the many benefits of this kind of arrangement has been the insights shared between mothers in prayer.
“It really helps to have someone else’s input,” she admits. “Because Cindy’s kids are older than mine, she’s been through a lot of what I’m going through and what I’m praying about. It’s been a big help. And even though I’ve never been exactly where she is in terms of raising her family, I somehow am able to contribute as well. There are times, for example, when you are praying that the Lord simply drops an idea or insight in your mind. Cindy has said to me, following some of our prayers, ‘In all my years of praying for Lori and Lance, I’ve never thought to pray about it the way you did.’ Sometimes she calls me on the phone during the week and says, ‘You’d never believe what happened. . .‘ and shares a development that has come out of the new perspectives we gained in prayer.~~
Another woman that I interviewed — I’ll call her Rebecca —talked about the prayer partnership that she has been privileged to share with a close friend. These friends don’t have an established time at which they meet to pray. In fact, their busy schedules mean that months may go by without a good heart-to-heart talk, much less a chance to pray together. And yet these friends have managed to stay close and stay abreast of the transitions, crises, challenges, and dramas in each of their lives, and to uplift each other in prayer through thick and thin.
“It might be months between conversations,” Rebecca explains, “and yet this friend always cuts through the superficial and gets right to the heart of things — ‘How are you really doing?’ she’ll ask, and I’ll know she wants the truth. She knows me — the good, the bad, and the ugly — almost better than anyone because we’ve been honest with each other and we’ve really prayed for each other.
“And what means a lot to me is that it isn’t a one-sided relationship. A long time ago I went through a hard time and Pamela helped pray me through the experience. Then, several years later, Pamela had an experience similar to mine. We prayed together over that too. It’s give and take, give and take. During one crisis she’s strong for me, and hopefully I can be strong for her during the next one.~~
Who might join you in prayer? Who, in your life, shares the common grounds of a belief in God, a desire to pray, and a burden for the children of this generation? Who might accompany you as you journey together into effectiveness as a true parent warrior?
At the end of chapter 4 you identified a workable time and place for you to conduct your personal prayer life. It might be feasible for a prayer partner to join you at this time and place. For example, if you meet daily with God at 6:30 A.M., it might be possible for a spouse or friend to join you once a week at that time. It is more likely, however, that you will find yourself and your partner selecting a new time — one that works best for both schedules. My suggestion is that — however you manage the logistics — you attempt to keep a daily personal appointment with God, while finding a partner with whom to pray at least once a week.
Take a moment and provide the answers to the following questions and statements:
How often would I be interested in praying with a partner?
Three people with whom I would feel comfortable praying are:
Their phone numbers are:
Call this person — now, if possible. Arrange a time — at your home, at a park, over lunch, during a break at work — to spend a few moments sharing concerns and then taking these concerns, together, to the Lord.
I have spoken with ________________ who has agreed to join me in prayer as parent warriors. Our first appointment with God in prayer is scheduled for:
Date:
Time:
Place.
In world where dangers and temptations abound.., in a time when Christian-bashing is the politically correct thing to do . . . in a society where facades and schedules inhibit intimacy — it is our Father’s desire that we come together in fellowship and prayer. And it’s easy to see why. The risks of intimacy are always intimidating . . . but the rewards are great. Whether we pray with spouses or relatives or friends, in intimate clusters at church, on lunch breaks, over the phone or in each others’ homes, we really do need each other.
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