On Sunday Kyle went to church, without me, and our pastor spoke on prayer. I wanted to try a Step class at the gym and it started during church, so I decided I would skip and watch the sermon later online. When Kyle got home he said, "Greg told a story at church today and if you would have been there you would have cried." I told him, "Well, don't tell me because I am going to watch the sermon online once they post it." He agrees and we go on about our day.
Flash forward to dinner, we are sitting in a corner table at the Olive Garden. My back is to the wall so I'm in a position where I can see most of the people in the restaurant and they can also see me. Kyle says, "I'm just going to go ahead and tell you that story from church because it's just too good." He got to a part of the story and I started crying and he said, "If you are crying now, you are going to lose it at the end." He gets to the end and I'm sitting in Olive Garden bawling using my napkin to wipe away tears. A couple minutes later, I start crying again and tell Kyle he has got to start talking about something or I won't be able to stop. He was right, it is too good of a story not to share, so I wanted to share with the two or three people that read my blog.
The story is told by Brennan Manning, an author and teacher, that my pastor was able to talk with not too long ago. He had just started at a new church as a pastor and a woman in the church asked him if he would go see her father, who had cancer. She just wanted someone to go and visit with him. Brennan goes to the man's apartment, finds him in his bedroom, and sees an empty chair in the room. He says to the old man, "You must have been expecting me. I see you have a chair out for me." The old man replies, "No, that's not for you. I don't know who you are." He explains that he is a pastor and that he was coming to just visit with him and then asks him who the chair is for.
The old man tells him to shut the door and he will tell him why the chair is there. He explains that he has been a Christ follower for a long time but he never really knew how to pray. He would even become angry in services at church when the pastor spoke on prayer because he "didn't get anything out of it." He was given a book on prayer but after reading three pages he quit because he had to look up so many words. He pretty much gave up on prayer.
He was telling a friend that he just didn't really know how to pray and the friend told him, "You know how to pray. You trust Jesus. The easiest thing to do is just set an empty chair out and talk like Jesus is just sitting there right with you. Tell him your concerns and what's going on in your life. Jesus said He is always with you, so He's there, just talk to Him. The old man told Brennan, "It works. I've been doing it about two hours a day. I have to be careful that my daughter doesn't catch me because if she saw me talking to an empty chair she'd think I was crazy." They finished their conversation and Brennan left.
Two days later the daughter called Brennan and said, "Thank you for going by to see my dad. He really enjoyed it." Brennan told her how much he enjoyed meeting her dad and that he was glad he went. She told him she was calling also to tell him that her daddy died yesterday. Brennan told her how sorry he was and then asked if her dad died in peace. She said, "I think so. I was over at his house, he told me some of his corny jokes, I kissed him on the cheek and told him I was going to go to the grocery store to get him some things and when I came back from the store he was gone." Then she said, "But, I don't know what to do with this and it must have happened right before he died because when they found him he was out of bed kneeling with his head resting on the chair. Did he die in peace?"
What a sweet story and just a great depiction of how we should come to Christ with our issues, struggles, hopes, fears, and dreams. I too struggle with prayer. I feel in some ways that I don't say enough or I say too little or I sound dumb. I really enjoyed this sermon on prayer and what I took away from it is to just come to God with what's going on in your life. He knows everything already, so you are not going to shock him. Also, don't be afraid of rejection; He will never reject you. He may not give you the answer you were wanting but He will give you what is best for you. Just talk to Him--there is no need to try and impress Him.
If you want to hear the whole sermon, it's really good, just copy this link and then click on the message titled "Prayer."
https://www.wcrossing.org/default.aspx?page=3699
Xoxo,
Nicole
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