These are my gut-honest reflections on prayer.
I write from the perspective of an amateur. But perhaps that’s exactly what may help you.
In prayer I appear to be doing a lot of catching up. That is, catching up to what God is doing.
His work seems to take place right in front of me, hidden in plain sight. I walk onto a college campus or a golf course or an airplane and I try to look at the scene before me through the eyes of Christ:
Where is God creating an opening for a connection, a relationship, a gospel conversation?
What’s happening here that bears the mark of God?
It may be this: “Can I hold the door for you? . . . My name is Rick, by the way . . . ”
Or this: “Have you ever heard of the Family of God Diagram (FGD)?”
Then I hold the door and smile and just see what happens. Or with the person’s permission I share the FGD, and ask what they think.
An Encounter
One day at St. Olaf College I met up with Elizabeth. I learned that she and her friends do the one thing no one does at a private school: walk around campus and talk with people about God.
They don’t do it in any forceful way. They simply ask permission to talk.
They ask questions, they listen, they tell their story of walking with Jesus if the other person allows.
Just meeting Elizabeth was one of God’s doorways for me. So I walked through.
She and her friends asked me to provide a training on conversational evangelism, which I did.
Afterward Elizabeth looked around the union and said to me, “What are we waiting for?”
So we prayed, then asked a student at a neighboring table if we could talk with her about religion. She said yes. After finding out a bit about her life and background, we asked if we could share the FGD . . .
A few minutes later the student thanked us and we agreed to see her later. That was it. That’s as far as the Lord seemed to lead us.
Next week: how to recognize those divine doorways.
