Prayer!

A few years ago when we left the mission field after working in Cubulco, Guatemala for almost 10 years I had a debriefing meeting with our mission board.  I was asked to reflect on my years in Cubulco and was asked several questions.  Although I could answer most of the questions that were asked at that time there was one I could not answer.  This was the question:

"If you could go back and do it all over again what is one thing that you would do differently"? 

I did not know how to answer this question not because I thought I had done everything right and that I had no regrets.  There were many things I would do differently and I would change.  However, I could not think of the one thing that would sum all these things up in one answer.  Although, I could not answer this question at the time it stayed with me for the next months and continues to stay with me even today and I hope till the day I die even though I was revealed the answer.  The answer was short and simple "PRAYER".  I believe that God showed me the answer as I wrestled with the question.  I did not spend enough time in prayer.  Often when faced with difficult circumstances or frustrations or even ordinary circumstances I would act first and then pray later instead of praying first and acting later.  I relied too much on myself and too little on God.  I relied on my "strengths" instead of relying on God to show His power by being weak.  Now for the world this sounds absurd and foolish, but the Bible is very clear on this that God often chooses to show His power when we are weak.  Prayer seems like "weakness" to the world, but it precisely through prayer where God shows His power. 

Through all of this I have learned to pray more.  Prayer as James 5:16 says ^"Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much".

One of the things that I first noticed about Pastor Edgar Xicara who is now the pastor of the churches in Cubulco is that he is a man of prayer.  When I first visited him in his home in Guatemala City after we he had more or less agreed on him coming down to work in Cubulco was that he dedicated himself to praying for the work in Cubulco.  One of the things he shared with me was a calendar that he was drawing up in which on each day of the week he wrote specific prayer requests for the churches of Cubulco.  When he moved to Cubulco he placed the names of each family of the church in the calendar so that each day we are praying for a specific family in the church.  I believe that this is what will bring about change in our churches and in the lives of the members of the churches.  Another thing that Pastor Xicara has been doing is that at each prayer meeting that is held on Saturday afternoon he has been writing down the prayer requests.  After about a month or so he goes over the list of prayer requests to see which ones have been answered and which ones we need to continue to pray for.  This is very important and powerful since it helps us to see the working hand of God.  

I would encourage those who read this blog to implement the above mentioned things in your life and in your churches.  I have implemented this in AMG so that each day of the week we are praying for a specific project (AMG has 28 projects).  I firmly believe that if we as churches start praying more and more for each other we will also see more harmony and unity in our churches as this calendar will force us to pray for those members in the church who we do not know that well or do not really like that much.   Also as we write down our prayer requests and review them regularly we will see how God in His own way and time is answering these requests and this will encourage us to be more constant and fervent in our prayer life.