Friday, January 16, 2004
PRAYER MEETING OR GOSSIP SESSION?
I not only believe in prayer, I believe prayer is vital to my very existence and spiritual health. I pray. I ask others to pray for me and with me about issues. I pray for others far more than I pray for myself. So this is not intended to be a rant against prayer.
But I don’t feel comfortable participating in most group “prayer meetings” or “prayer sessions”. Usually far more time is spent talking about all the (sometimes gory) details about the matter supposedly to be prayed about. Very little time is spent praying. Often there is no time left for prayer. Why is it necessary to spend so much time probing the details of the request? Why do we feel it necessary to expound our personal opinions on every aspect of the situation we are supposedly to pray about?
I have decided it is the sin-nature in us. Why else would we be so enamored with knowing every detail? Some would argue we have to know details in order to be able to pray intelligently or adequately? I would ask, ”Why?” Do we believe in a Sovereign, Omniscient God or not? Yes, He has asked us to pray – always, even though He knows our needs before we ask. But we don’t have to know “everything about everything” in order to pray. God knows. It is our sin-nature curiosity that causes us to want to know more than we need to know in order to pray. And that sin-nature causes us to want to tell others. It may just be gossip disguised as a “prayer request” – especially if we are “requesting prayer” for someone else rather than for ourselves or our family.
I would agree that we need to know more details if we seriously intend to do something overtly to help in a situation about which we are also praying. But that is a different issue entirely. The prayer groups in which I have participated, or the prayer requests on Sunday mornings during worship, have no connection with doing anything to help in a situation. They are supposedly just for praying. And we don’t need a lot of details to do that.
This Blog is intended to address one of my distresses about group prayer meetings. There is another about which I will Blog later. Let’s digest this one for now.
I hope no one misunderstands what I’ve written. I will continue to participate in prayer groups. But I hope I can have some influence in some of them to move beyond the “gossip session” to the effective, fervent prayer which God honors. So far it hasn’t happened.
Jim
Jimdewing@yahoo.com
posted by jim 11:39 AM 0 comments
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