Teach me to pray

Family,

So, here I am.. almost a month after my travels in Uganda with Dad… I’m at a Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship (PEF) conference here in Milligan, Tennessee and I am flooded with emotion…  I can’t quite figure it out.  I haven’t felt the need to write since I was in Uganda.  (and that…I don’t know what to do with)  What is it that makes me have to process so much when I’m with my dad?  Why do I not process when I’m away from him?  Is it him?  Is it the fact that when I’m with him I’m steeped in Jesus?  Am I flooded with the Spirit and that’s why I feel this way?  I have no idea!!!  I have no idea what is going on right now…

What I do know is that I was just downstairs enjoying the most beautiful sing along with some amazing people.  Our beautiful brother John Linville led us in worship tonight.  But, it wasn’t all serious (or at least the tone wasn’t)… it was straight-up sing-along, folk, fun singing to Jesus.  I just met John yesterday, but knew instantly that I loved him.  He and his wonderful wife were just SO lovely and calming.  But, there is something different about his calming… it doesn’t sedate you… it fills you up.  I’ve never quite felt this way around someone before.

Anyway, John has cancer and tonight while he was singing and smiling and winking and bringing joy to the entire room, I felt this overwhelming urge to cry.  I wasn’t sad.  I wasn’t so lost in worship that I was crying.  I was grieved… and it wasn’t because he has cancer (well, not exactly).  I was moved to cry because I wanted (even needed) to pray for God to heal him.  But, I knew that I was inadequate.  (This isn’t a ploy for pity.. for my Christian friends to say “Oh Michelle… yadda yadda…”)

I feel God moving… I feel that He wants to teach me how to pray and on one hand I couldn’t be more excited about it… but, on the other, I’m afraid of that power.  I have a complex of being afraid of success… I know that sounds stupid… and eventually I’ll get over it, but that’s where I am.  But, think about it… Christ told us that we will do even greater things than He.  EVEN GREATER THINGS.  Greater things than Christ?  Yep.  That is truth, my friends.

So, that is what I’m processing.  I feel God is about to show me how to ask for His will.  How to pray in spirit and in truth.  How to know Him more.  How to be more like Jesus.  I am at that brink.  I’m at the place where I usually stop dead in my tracks and shutdown, but I can’t.  I have the overwhelming urge to throw myself at the feet of Jesus and BEG Him to teach me how to pray for my brother John.  BEG him to teach me how to pray for the healing of my dad.  BEG Him to teach me how to be His hands and feet.  BEG him for revival.

And then… accept that He will.

We serve the King of Kings.  The King of Kings has adopted me into His family and given me a new life that cries for others.  My tears tonight are not because John is so sick and I don’t want him to die, they are because he is so filled with the spirit and he overflows onto everyone else… and I want him to stick around to share that with as many people as possible.  I want to experience that as much as possible.  Maybe I’m just selfish…  Either way, I am certain that God wants me at the feet of Jesus begging Him to teach me to pray.

I’ve been reading a book titled, ­With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray.  I’m only on chapter thirteen and it is already rocking my world.

I’m just so blessed…

Advertisement