Coffee with Jesus

It took me a long time to understand the purpose of prayer...and I am still on the journey. My first memories were of my Great-Grandmother on Sunday mornings. She would start cooking breakfast and then literally get on her knees in the dining room. If I actually made it to Sunday morning breakfast (which was extremely rare), I would join her in the same position...on my knees and leaning on the plastic covered dining room chairs.  I would eventually fall back  to sleep only to be the awakened by the feeling of my skin sticking to the plastic.

The thing that is still special to me about this Sunday morning prayer time is that on a normal day, you couldn't pay Ma Hessie to get on her knees, close to the ground. But on Sunday mornings, you would always find her on her knees in prayer. She did this ritual every Sunday morning, regardless of how she felt or if anyone joined her. I started to understand that prayer was something important...worth waking up for, worth being physically inconvenienced for, worth doing it alone.

The other initial memory of prayer was from my home church. Wednesdays was prayer meeting. Each week at 7pm. Sometimes there was only 10-12 of us, and some weeks there could be as many of 30. Mostly the older folks attended...and me and younger brother of course (cuz we were at everything). Prayer meeting has a simple format: Someone starts a song, we all sing it, someone decides to pray and goes up to the altar, everybody gets up and walks around the front of the church shaking the deacons' hands and the hands of the next pray-er. Then we all sit down and that volunteer would literally pray their heads off...and while they prayed, the rest verbally agreed. The pray-er would finish, and we would do the whole thing again. We could do this a number of times, but somehow we always got out by 8pm. It never got old. It was always strong, always loud, and always honest. Even now, I remember the feeling that God was so close...actually listening to prayers of his people.

The amazing thing about the prayer meeting was that it was never so much about whether God did what we asked. Don't get me wrong...when someone prayed for healing in their body or restoration of a relationship or whatever, we hoped and believed that God would provide. But the thing that kept you coming back to weekly prayer meeting was that it seemed that God was really listening when you sang the song, walked around shaking hands and screamed out a prayer. And that feeling, of a God who hears us, was so comforting. Everything else seemed like mere details. In fact, I don't remember any specific prayer from my prayer meeting days. But I do remember being very careful not to play around too much (as young kids in prayer meetings do) because I somehow knew that God was near and that meant something significant...even for a kid.

Years later, my thoughts on prayer have evolved. I still believe in the power of prayer and I still believe in a God who listens. But I wonder if you have to be on your knees or in a church  at all to lift up a prayer that God hears. I have found myself sitting in coffee shops and having the same feeling I had in those childhood prayer meetings...that everything I'm saying, even in the silence of my heart, is being heard. What's more, I am realizing that prayer is not just about me talking to God, and isn't just God talking to me. In fact, I have found that simply talking at God might be missing the point of this great opportunity we know of as prayer. Could prayer be a conversation, a casual chat with eternal ramifications. It is hard to believe, but I have literally had coffee with God. While I truly believe that prayer is an important topic, I wonder if it at times becomes inaccessible to those who find it all confusing. So I am asking the question to myself, through the scriptures, to some other folks I trust and to God himself...could prayer be as simple as having coffee with God?

Join me on Tuesdays at the A218 Main Gathering to hear more thoughts...

Comments

[Nikki]

Thanks for sharing. Good stuff Derrick.
Hope all is well with you!
Nikki

[Geri]

My grandmother was who taught me to pray... thank you for the reminder for me to remember all she taught me about prayer, and about God.

[Brian Fullford]

Who is prayer for and what does it do? I still don't think that has been answered.