Prayer Saturated Series

 Reading through a chapter every three weeks, this study is from “The Prayer Saturated Family”.  You can read the rest of the series here.  This week we are doing chapter Three

“Sacred Moments”.

 The building of a family prayer altar.  What this means is gathering as a family at a regular time to pray. 

How and when this will happen will be a matter of prayer between you and God, together with your family.  To set aside intentional time for group prayer, particularly as families, but if no family then with friends and neighbours.

I don’t know.
I struggle with this concept.  

Let me clear though.
Not the concept of praying together as a family, but more the act of calling it an altar.

I struggle with the concept thinking of how it can so easily be twisted.  We pray as a family every _____ OR ELSE. 

I fail to see what is wrong with just praying together as a family over meal-times, adding in the concerns of the family, neighbourhood, land and world?  Why does it need to be a time set apart?   Isn’t prayer time, at any time, a time set apart for God?

As I read some of the examples in the book I didn’t see them as “family prayer altar” times.  I simply saw them as times that people prayed.  Prayer as they walked, prayer as they drove to work or school, prayer on a couch over something important.  It was simply prayer, intentional prayer and spur of the moment prayer.

Just plainly, people praying together.  WHY does it need to have the label of “altar” attached to it?

Prayer can be useful in so many ways….it is GOOD to attach importance to it, and have significance attached to how we pray, and to see the value in praying together.  

It is good to see how prayer was used at altars in the past, as a prayer of thankfulness for God’s actions, as a way to keep our fervor for the Lord alive,and as a way of fellowshipping with each other.  Prayer is a sign of our faithfulness to God… and should not be discounted or trivialized.  But neither…and this is my concern.. that if you place it “on an altar”.. that it will be lofty for folks to attain on their own.   Prayer is talking with God, receiving his pardon and forgiveness, a time to bring concerns before him and to thank him for his love shown to us in a mirade of ways.

It is good to be reminded to intentionally pray.  I know that some families don’t pray together (and sometimes we (my family) lack in this ourselves).  This chapter is a call to be mindful of the need to pray more as a family.   To intentionally do so.  That is what I can take away you know….that need to intentionally pray as a family… to talk with God, thanking him, remembering his actions, knowing and seeing his power at work.  Good this.  

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Amazon.ca: The Prayer-Saturated Family: How to Change the Atmosphere in Your Home through Prayer

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 Reading through a chapter every three weeks, this study is from “The Prayer Saturated Family”.  You can read the rest of the series here.  This week we are doing chapter two “The Unstoppable Power of a United Praying Family”.

The encouragement in this chapter is to remember that praying together as a family for the neighbourhood that you live in makes a huge difference, it can transform your whole neighbourhood.

The example was given of one family that prayed for their neighbourhood, eventually seeing families coming to faith and an entire neighbourhood changed. 

I have to admit that I struggled with the author’s understanding of the prayer of Jabez.   His prayer reads “Jabez called upon the God of Israel, saying “oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that you hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain!” And God granted what he asked.”   This was not a prayer for increased spiritual influence in the world around him, this was a prayer of a man who wanted to be blessed of God with more land and good health.  Nothing more.   Mixed into a long line of genealogies, Jabez was a man who prayed, a man who was born in pain (v9) and didn’t want more of it.  God extended grace to him and gave him what he wanted. 

I do love this line, “that real disciples create real disciples” (p.29).  We can train our children not to be afraid of the world but to pray through the world, through the territory that God gives them. 

Praying through your neighbourhood as a family does this: It teaches you where you can be a blessing from God to those in your sphere of influence.   Praying through your family can give you goals to meet.   God answers these prayers and changes the family, and changes the neighbourhood.

I have to admit, I struggle with this idea. 
I have an intellectual understanding of it, and I have seen prayer in surprising action on more than one occasion, but I struggle with the idea that the prayers of one family can have such a drastic result.  And what happens if a family takes this approach and sees no change occurring?     I suppose I am seeing more of the “what ifs” and less of the “God cans”.   It stems, I think, from fear.   If I make this change, and pray with my family over the neighbourhood we are in now and over the future of where we will be, and God doesn’t answer those prayers.  What will I do with that?

I should not let this stop me.
Just as I don’t want fear to stop my lad from doing or trying something new…I shouldn’t let the fears that I have about “what if God says no” to prayer concerning this family and the areas that God might place us in. 

See I have to remember this immutable truth God is the Lord.     His decisions, his call, his ways.  He knows ALWAYS what is the best for all his people.  All he requires from us is the willingness to listen to what he wants and the simple obedience to his will.   He works through the prayers of his people, and sometimes despite the lack of prayers of his people. 

He still works things out according to his will.

It is a comfort and a hope.