Back to School Day of Prayer

 

It’s been almost one week since the Back to School Day of Prayer at our church. God put the idea on my heart several weeks ago, and I wrote it on a scrap of paper. I remembered, years ago, reading on Kelly Stamps’ blog about how she and her friends would gather to cry and pray after sending their kids off to kindergarten.

                I thought about stories I’ve heard about the challenges of school years – for students and teachers alike – and I thought about the great need to saturate the year in prayer.

                So we put together a day where the church sanctuary would be open from 7 in the morning until 7 at night, and anyone from the church could come and go as they pleased to pray for as long as they wished. We also had cards with the first names of our students and our teachers, so people could adopt a name to pray over for the year.

                By the time the day ended, each name had been prayed over, but what I want to share with you today has little to do with that part of the adventure.

                It has everything to do with what God did in my own heart.

                I was there for all twelve of those hours. I made a little nest over in the corner of the sanctuary, and for a portion of the day, I read, studied, and did a little work. But for the majority of the day, I sat and prayed. And listened. I did a lot of listening.

                Soft worship music played in the background, and I simply…sat.

                I realized, several hours in, that I’ve not done this before. I have never just camped out in a sanctuary for hours on end to pray. I haven’t listened for that long before.

                We don’t do it, you know. Most of us, anyway. We five-minute-pray and rush through everything in our day. We don’t take time to sit and pray. It takes too much of our time, and we aren’t willing to spare it.

                I felt great sadness about that – for myself and for those around me. I wondered what we are all missing out on, not because we don’t pause for prayer, but because the only thing we do is pause for prayer. We never stop and linger.

                That day in the sanctuary, I prayed for many students and many teachers. I prayed for those who came to pray. But I also prayed for our people as a whole. For myself and our whole congregation. What could life be like if we fully embraced the power of prayer? What would life be like if we sat still for extended periods of time and really listened?

                I think our lives would transform if we all took a full day – an extra full day – multiple times a year to simply sit and listen. Can you imagine if we took the time?