Can I pray for you?

Kind intention is mostly heard by my ear when I have encountered this question.  The amount of times I have been asked this finds me very grateful when I consider that there are literally people who go through their days without anybody caring enough to pray for them.  Sometimes I have felt deep,  deep compassion...other times I felt like I was to be the product of a human agenda--a controlled approach to what people think I need.  In spite of my crticism of it and in keeping with who I am in creating this blog platform  I want to tell you a story of how this ask no longer pulls at me in a negative way and share my heart as He is forming me thus far.  I have not arrived yet and approach prayer and learning to pray from a heart that cries out, "Lord, teach us to pray!"

A couple summers ago I  headed  to Winnipeg with a crew of college-age friends. We would attend a monthly young adult worship gathering.  During the worship set in the middle of a song a man in a wheelchair rolled up beside me as I was standing with my crutches and said, "Hey can I pray for you?"  He began to pray for physical healing and the love of the Father to be felt and known by me. My gut began to churn as my pride quickly kicked in and I remember thinking "God, I think people should pray for HIM too!"  The night ended with some real honest vulnerable tears as on the car ride home  as my friends debriefed with me  and asked me my thoughts and feelings about prayers and my healing.

A few months later in January I was in a little prayer gathering when the city churches come together annually for prayer and fasting.  The call to pray was over and I was getting up to leave and bundle up for my cold scooter ride home when a  man with a limp and lame hand ( I found out later that he has Cerebral Plasy too) came and asked to pray for me.  There was the same deep compassion...and that same question through my tears. "God, how can he pray this for ME when he needs it too?

These two experiences and stories speak to me of a deep call to faith.  Seriously though!  The amount of faith these two men exemplified was incredible.  I know this is a humble childlike faith because I wonder how many of us would ask God to give someone else what we need the most?  I wonder if instead of excusing ourselves from reaching out our hand or heart to pray for someone,  we did it even in the middle of our own struggle and suffering? Our place of pain or need does not disqualify us from God's grace, glory and favor.  Could it be that real faith is reaching out and praying for someone on the way to your own healing?  

I think in these two instances God invited me to see that my stuff that I think actually hinders me in God's Kingdom is the same stuff when laid before Him can be transformed into beauty, freedom and love for another.

What about you?  This goes deeper than just your theology of healing.  There are places in all of us that  are in need of healing and transformation.  Sometimes we think that we have nothing to offer because this 'wound' is still there.  My favourite writers and theologians are the ones who have a deep knowing of Jesus as the wounded healer.  His scars still remain in his resurrected body to show us that pain is a place where glory comes....and is coming!

I wonder if prayer can be about  inviting God to act?

I wonder if it is  yet even more about us responding to Him more than getting from Him?

So pray...pray when you feel like it, pray when you're in need because we CAN pray.  We can find grace and healing in our time of need.

My ongoing journey with prayer and God seem to leave me with more to learn and I cry out , Lord, teach us to pray!"Still as I close this post tonight a quote from Mother Teresa is hitting the walls of my heart:

"I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things."