“I don’t know what to pray for anymore or what I should pray, can you please pray for my mother?” My mother died of cancer in 2007. If you are a person of faith and have ever walked with a loved one as they are living out their last days and the hope of healing diminishes, then you may have experienced a weariness in your prayers. I have. When I struggled to find the strength to pray and what I should pray. I looked to someone else that had what I considered to be a bigger picture of God and his Spirit.
I was a student minister during my mother’s fight with cancer. My prayers were dry and I was Holy Spirit shy. During an interdenominational gathering of student pastors, I shared my weariness with the group.
“What should I pray for?”
“What do you want?”
“For her to live.”
They prayed for my mother with words and a passion that I was lacking.
Sometimes your faith can be boosted by the faith of others. Sometimes it’s dependent on them. Their prayers reminded me of the bigness of God, His sovereignty and the Holy Spirit’s comfort and counsel.
They put to words the groans of the Spirit described in Romans 8. They poured out their hearts like God poured out a fullness of Christ’s love in mine through his Spirit (Romans 5).
It was refreshing, encouraging, faith building but not surprising. I sought them out. I desired their unhindered wet-with-the-Spirit faith. We had our youth pastor meetings at First Assembly and I don’t mean First Assembly church of Christ, First Assembly of God.
You know what I’m talking about. You probably have a go-to person or a couple who has an unlimited belief in God and the Holy Spirit’s activity on this planet. The way they talk about God is different, the way they pray is different. They are like an outlier in your faith community that is cautious to admit that God prompts people, or speaks to people, or can do the impossible.
Your faith is too rational, too guarded, too sterile to provide the heavy lifting of watching a loved one die with hope.
You go to this person, this couple because you want to meet God. You want to encounter the God of the Bible that you read about and that you are apprehensive or afraid. The powerful unpredictable God of fresh fire, flowing rivers, deep wells, strong winds, the uncaged God.
What you are looking for is the person of Spirit.
It’s what I sought. It’s what I seek.
What do you seek? If you are like me you may have given your life to God and now you seek to experience him. But for others they have experienced him and now they spend the rest of their lives answering these two questions: Who is the God I met? And what does he want for my life?
Which one are you?
You don’t just need to believe in God. You need to meet him.
I wanted my mother to live but what I discovered in my weariness of prayer was that I wasn’t.
I wanted my mother to be healed and what I discovered was that I needed to be healed from my sickness of fear. The fear of doubt. The fear that asks, “What if I believe my God to be too big and find him to be the opposite? What if I speak in the boldness in the Spirit and find myself as an outsider in my own faith community?”
My mother died. Cancer took her life. It was a pivotal moment in mine. I learned and am learning that it’s ok to seek freedom. A freedom from the oppressive, suffocating, tyranny of the natural.
I’m still a work, the Spirit is still working on me, and He still working in this world.
Holy Spirit reign on me and in me.
Have you ever experienced a weariness in your faith and prayers? Do you have a go-to person that gives you strength through the Holy Spirit? What does this reveal about your own relationship with God’s Spirit?
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Jovan preaches for the Littleton Church of Christ near Denver, Colorado. Visit here to listen to sermons preached at the Littleton Church.