I have mentioned before my life group does a challenge the last Wednesday of each month.  When I found out that my two co-leaders were going to be out of town and asked if I would facilitate it I was a bit nervous.  I haven’t led group in a while first of all to concentrate on some other things in my life, but I also had never led group while both of them were out at the same time.  If one was gone I had the other there for support. 

Last week I began my quest of thinking on what the group could do.  We have done many things such as visiting nursing homes, hung out with the homeless, prayed outside of jail walls and prayer walks.  As the days went by I prayed that God would grant me an idea. 

Prayer has been a huge part of my walk with the Lord lately.  Obviously being a christian prayer should be the most important practice we do and yet how many times do I go through my day allowing all the busyness crowd my thoughts.  It is easy to forget about praying when things “seem” to be going right in your life.  Maybe your job is great, relationships are flourishing and many opportunities are at your finger tips.  I realize at times in my life that I don’t pray as often as I should because things seem good, but what about when the waves hit against the rocks of our life…we immediately realize how important prayer really is.  And maybe our prayers become a way of bargaining with God to get us out of the situation when instead it is supposed to be an act of intimacy and devotion we desire to be close to our Lord.

So, back to the whole practice of prayer.  Yes, I will admit that I am in a rocky season right now where I am attacking many demons from my past and on the path to healing and restoring which has caused me to pray and seek God daily.  As I thought about how important prayer is I realize not only is prayer essential in my walk with God, but it is just as important to pray over others.  And so last night our challenge for our life group was laying out our prayer request and individually laying hands on a person and praying over those request.  We spent 2 hours praying for one another.  And with my surprise both of my co-leaders were able to show up since their plans of being out of town changed a day later.

I was a bit nervous thinking about what it was going to be like.  I asked God all day yesterday to release all my expectations and the only thing to be expectant about was that He was going to show up and hear our prayers.  As I got to our life group location I was blessed by Rich (my co-leader) asking if he could pray for me before we begin and of course I accepted.  After our prayer our night began.  I was first as I know most of the people were a bit nervous to be real and open about their hearts.  I was a bit nervous myself since I was going to share things that most of them didn’t know…especially with me  being in the sexual abuse group on Tuesday nights, but as I opened my heart and sat in the middle and had my group lay hands and pray over me I knew it was at that moment that it wasn’t about a feeling of Him being there…I just knew that I knew the Spirit of the Living God was upon all of us.

Praying for the different individuals in my group gave me such a confidence in my own prayer life.  I often struggle at times of how to pray and what to say, but last night the Spirit gave me ALL the words to say.  I didn’t have to rely on myself, but fully on Him.  I got to hear more in depth of people’s hearts in where they are at in life, the things they are struggling with, the freedom’s they desire and the love from God that they so desperately what to embrace and walk in.

On my drive home last night I could not help but give praise to God for such an intimate opportunity.  A true challenge for others to open up and be real with their hearts.  My hope is that after last night we as a life group are closer and that our life group would be based on the practice of prayer.  That it would become our daily life…that we would live and breath to commune with God and we would remember those request from our fellow brothers and sisters.  Christ was a complete example of what it truly means to pray.  Many times you see Jesus in the gospel’s walking in the distant to pray and commune with the Heavenly Father.  He knew where He would find His strength, peace and comfort in the midst of such a chaotic world and my hope and prayer is that His example will become the realness of my life and others.