Brining Each Other To God

In my church in San Diego this past Sunday, we started a new series on prayer. This summer we went through the letters of John, looking at what John had to say about community, relationships, and the way we conduct ourselves as Christians. Trekking steadily through September, the church is looking at a new series about prayer, using the Our Father prayer from Matthew 6 as our home base.

I’ll happily admit that prayer makes me uncomfortable.

I don’t really like asking for things, and closing my eyes and trying to concentrate usually ends up with me thinking about what I have to cook for dinner. I can happily read Scripture and talk about it, but coming to God in the quiet of my thoughts and asking for what I really want? Telling Him what I’m afraid of, and letting Him into the fragile joy of my being? Praying with people, and letting them know what I’m feeling as well?

No thank you.

But God has a curious way of bringing us into what we need to learn and grow in. So when my church announced the series on prayer, I thought, no way. And then last week I wrote the Spring Church blog on how our community brings us to Jesus for healing. Prayer is an integral part of that healing. Both churches I’m a part of are focusing on praying right now?

Alright, God, I get it.

Prayer is how we get to talk to God in an individual sense, but it’s also how we get to come together, as a church and community, and discern, petition, and give thankfulness. We can celebrate a new baby, ask for guidance on vocation, petition for healing, and grieve losses. Prayer is how we, together, talk to God. It’s how we, together, walk through life.

So in church last week, the lead pastor asked us to turn to someone next to us, and as we felt comfortable (I wasn’t), pray for each other. The woman next to me I knew, thankfully, but even though we’d been in the same small group for months, I hadn’t talked to her very much. But as I turned, she without hesitation told me how school was weighing on her and she needed peace from God in the middle of anxiety.

What could I possibly do, other than take her hand and try my very best to pray? Not wondering what I was going to say next, or how I sounded, but lifting her up to God and asking for healing. And she did the same for me.

I won’t say that it was perfect, or even that I was magically comfortable and ready to go out praying for the world. But it felt right in a way it hadn’t for a long, long, time. With her praying over me, and me not only letting it happen but participating, I felt the Holy Spirit there. We were bringing each other to Jesus.

In the story of the paralyzed man, his friends physically bring him to Jesus for healing. Because Jesus has not physically returned (that I know of; it hasn’t been announced on Facebook yet) we bring each other to Jesus through prayer.

Praying for someone else isn’t just about them, it’s about you, too. Because prayer doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and every time you come to God you walk away changed. It isn’t always a big change, and it might not always last. We are human, after all. But praying with someone and helping to bring them to Jesus for healing is a mark of your faith as well as theirs. It’s living in a loving community and faith, over and over again.

Prayer is the stretcher that brought the paralyzed man to Jesus.

t’s a demonstration of his faith, and his friend’s faith, because healing doesn’t happen alone. This past week at Spring Church, as we’ve been praying with our spiritual friends, we’ve been engaging with that spiritual practice of petition—for healing, for peace, for joy, or for comfort.

This upcoming week, we’re going to engage with what we’ve noticed. How might God have been answering our prayers? Where has He spoken, and where was He silent? How have we, as a community, been changed as we live out our faith by bringing each other to the feet of Jesus?

Join us for our Common Table Gathering this Sunday to talk about how praying for each other brings us closer to God. We’ll eat a meal together, visit the story of the paralyzed man again, and pray as we’re comfortable (or not, because God loves showing up there too).