The Simple Requirement

Pain is a humbling thing.  I have faced the lion of life threatening heart virus (not painful but extremely exhausting), and occasional back pain, but NOTHING like the stabbing, nerve irritating neck pain of my degenerative disk disease!!!! It is like an electric shock combined with knife stab between my neck and shoulders while I try to move my head into a position to eliminate it while crying out to my God to make it stop.  IT HURTS!!!!  Until the past few days, I never experienced pain of this magnitude!

Now before you think I am complaining, I'm not.  Just trying to get you to understand (like you could unless I shocked and stabbed you in the neck, or unless you've had this) a taste of where I am right now.  As I key these words, I sit here in utter awe and thanksgiving.  REALLY?  YES, really.

In a past blog I spoke of how God wanted me to become a man of prayer.  My prayer life has exploded!  I talk to God with great regularity about all kinds of things and for people He brings to mind at the strangest times for who knows what.  On rare occasions He has given me glimpses of timing and reasons for my prayers (and it has been amazing, but that may be for another blog).  With His help, His reminding, my prayer life has grown exponentially.  I sit here sans complaint because it seems what God has called me to do, He is returning to me in spades!

I confessed, on Facebook, my excruciating pain in the neck (no I wasn't speaking of my wife, or my kids they are the joy of my life) asking for prayer.  And my friends have answered my request...from all over they are praying.  I have prayed for all of them one time or another, requested or not as I looked through their posts and pages, yes for each of the hundreds of friends I have on Facebook.

While pain is humbling, being the recipient of prayers is too.  With each "like" or "comment" I have come to understand that I am surrounded by those whose care, their prayer carrying me before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; carrying me like the friends of the paralyzed man lowered through the roof for Jesus to heal.  It's my turn.  My turn to be the one on the stretcher unable to help myself.  My turn to be the one in great need of the Great Physician, again.  My turn to be coddled and loved.  My turn to accept these prayers in humility, overflowing with celebration of thanksgiving.

For those thinking that prayer is a waste of time, I am confident it is not; No moment squandered, no words uttered that the God of the universe does not hear.  While we may not always like His answer, He does so with mighty wisdom and for our good, and I am ever hopeful that my debilitating pain will not be my 'thorn in the flesh' to endure till the end of this life.  But I sit at His mercy.

I cherish each and every person taking moments or spending hours of time praying for me and others.  Something tells me that when we arrive in heaven, prayer will be at the top of God's list of following Him in obedience; the seemingly insignificant rising to the most elevated of significance in His upside down economy.  Prayer is inviting God into our world, like opening the door for one we love (I frequently open the car door for my beloved Carrie, notice and hold doors open in other places for others as well).  God is unique.  He will not force Himself on us.  He could, but He won't.  He wants to work and has told us twice in the Bible [1] [2] what we bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever we loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.   This is just how He has set it up; another of the amazing characteristics of an amazing God.

Do we really have the ability to keep hold God back from working?  Absolutely not.  However life here would be so different if we included Him, His grace, His character, His workings as part of our lives; all of our lives.  I know my life has been transformed by the prayers of my friends.  It could be much worse but for the grace of God.  I am extremely thankful for each and everyone who has taken time to loose the power of God in potential healing of my neck.  Thankful for friends who care, and thankful I can be one who cares for them as well.  Together we can invite God back into our world, into our lives.  We can invite transformation of our world, our friends, our lives. He requires our opening of the door; the simple requirement of prayer.