25 minutes in the pit

I told the Lord as I was falling asleep just before midnight that if He woke me up, I would go, but otherwise, I was just gonna have to miss our church's 6 am prayer meeting this morning.

I've missed almost all of the 21 days of 6 am corporate prayer. First, Matt had been incredibly, incredibly sick (there's been this illness going around), then we've had lots of precious visitors and friends and family with us, and me being gone from 5:30-7:30 am just hadn't been possible. 

But blessed Aunt Sharon is here, and so these are the days of Doing What Is Never Done...like doubling up on homeschool and getting done by lunch, the kids each getting some alone time, and someone else cooking dinner.  

So I set out my not-so-faithful sleep fleece, and of course, the cat was meowing up a storm so loud outside our bedroom window in the middle of the night--us not even aware that she'd been out--that it woke up both Matt and I.  

It was 5:09 am.  

So, I groaned at the Lord and went, and I groaned again at our pastor when I found the lights, usually dim on Sunday mornings with all lights on stage, blazing the bedraggled but present 15 people this morning. 

But man alive, did He meet me in the fog I brought with me and in the blaze Foundry provided.

It wasn't anything to do with the service, necessarily, though the worship was meaningful and so was the short message. It was the 25 minutes of individual prayer time that changed my current life...which means that He could be working powerfully in my life EVERY early morning, wherever I was, if I dedicated 25 minutes to prayer!

I spent the first 15 minutes praying heavy for a hurting friend...complicated beyond comprehension, pain deeper than words piled on pain deeper than words. I had TIME, so I lifted it all. I prayed for all the pieces, all the parts. I prayed back. I prayed forward. I prayed today. I prayed physical, I prayed spiritual, I prayed emotional. I prayed all over that dear friend and all the shards. And as I prayed, His tears just poured down my cheeks, and I was met with such a boldness to draw near. To ASK the impossible. To pray the shutting and the opening of doors. To do what can't be done.  

This situation that I have been devastated over not being able to live and love INTO from afar He boiled down. I can't help much. But He can. I can't change hearts. But He can. I am not actually the one who is needed. But He IS.

And this morning, for 25 minutes, unlike ANY other religion in the world, I had God's CARE. I had His EAR. 

Brothers and sisters, we have the ear and the heart of THE Solution, of THE Great Need. 

What power there is in a few minutes of totally abandoned prayer.

After I prayed for my friend came Haiti.  Haiti and my children, my children and Haiti...I lift them up continually in every moment of my day.

My heart was instantly brought to the twenty
men and women and four children who were finally uncovered, still alive, this past weekend, a full week after the earthquake. As I prayed this morning, I sat in that dark and terrifying and buried space with them, those days and days. I prayed with their heaviness of heart. I prayed through the conversations they must have had, the suffering they must have experienced. As I prayed, I saw the light they finally saw as their saviors cast bricks aside, felt the impossible hope that they felt, praised the Lord for that miracle as those bodies and souls were lifted out of the pit.

But as they were lifted, I stayed, stayed in that dusty grave and prayed on...prayed with tears pouring again and still, for the many, many who never emerged and never will. Praying to see what He showed me.

And He showed me that He was fully there.

Do you know who was there in that grave with them? Alive? Dying? Scared? Bleeding? Crying? Hoping? Praying? Suffocating?

Our God is THERE.

God reminded me so powerfully that genuine joy thrilled my dusty heart. The horrors of the last days and weeks around the world that I don't even BEGIN to understand or relate to...in those injustices, in those tortures, in those travesties, in those graves, God reminded me that He Almighty is there and present. And as man after woman after child around the globe struggles and suffers, I PRAYED this morning with a boldness and passion from the darkness that as they called out, perhaps some for the first time, GOD!!...that they heard His voice.  That they HEAR His voice and see His face and feel His presence. 

I prayed this morning first, that in those homes and schools and stores and countries turned graves, that God was there, is there, is close...but He quickly reminded me that HE IS.  

So I prayed instead that as many have in desperation called out to Him, that He would draw close, that they would KNOW Him. That as so many have breathed their final breaths, that His breath of wholeness and healing and heaven would meet them.

No matter HOW dark the day, if our God is IN the graves with us...if He listens to the cries of His creation...if He cares for us like we say He does...if His final work is in the places NO man can touch...if His final victory is replacing our final breaths with His own and bringing true and rich and eternal joy, healing and peace...  

Man. 

I'd been missing it.  

I'd been missing HIS good still undermining the evil the world dishes out, even if only in the victory of death...I'd been missing the realization that IN horrors and hell-holes, our God is still THERE and I believe and have faith that as people are calling out for Him, He is making Himself known...that people are coming to know Him.

I'm not buried alive nor buried gone with our brothers and sisters in Haiti, sharing with them Jesus. I'm not in Nigeria or Afghanistan or being trampled in the middle of so many overwhelmingly heartbreaking situations...but as I put myself among them in my prayers, the first thing I saw is that the Mighty One, the Gentle One, the Holy One, the Healer...He is THERE.

Let us PRAY for one another from the pits.

And though we are not there, may we never shut up about the Hope and Life that we have in Jesus where we ARE.  

Where we are may well be the dark and terrifying and buried space of many.  May we be the Light that illuminates the here-and-coming Savior the world so badly needs. May we come alongside with the impossible hope that is needed. May we praise the Lord for the miracles of souls being lifted from the darkness, forever more.

And as those around us call out, many for the first time, "God!" may they hear His voice. May they hear it today because we have been praying His GRACE into their hearts and minds. May they hear it, if He grants us, through US.

I challenge you, I challenge me. 25 minutes a day of taking the world on at His feet.