Praying With Friends

I was struggling yesterday. Nothing specifically, just struggling. It was like I was trying to walk through knee-high jello. I bumped into a good friend and we had a chance to visit. Not a 'counseling session' or anything, just two friends visiting. But, as is often the case, our talk came around to spiritual stuff. We're both Christians and He is first and foremost in our lives. That's what makes our friendship so special and so strong. Before I headed home, we prayed together. I went from slogging through the jello to riding a lightweight racing bike on smooth asphalt. My spirit was refreshed and I felt alive again. I was flying!

I came to the Lord in the early 70s when "conversational prayer" was just catching on. It was radical stuff back in those days! One person would pray, then another, then another... and finally one person would close. Sometimes we'd stand in a circle holding hands. Folks would pray, one after the other around the circle. If you didn't feel comfortable praying out loud, you just had to squeeze the person next in line to indicate you chose to pass. I remember having my fingers crushed a few times back then. The person next to me wanted to make darned sure I knew they weren't going to say anything out loud in our prayer circle. Message received. The feeling in my fingers returned later. And of course, we had one person to "close" our prayer by adding the magic 'in Jesus' Name' at the end!

It was like a bunch of folks signing the same birthday card. We each made our contribution but it wasn't really conversational. It was nice, but only the start. Granted, it was a big improvement over one boring dude in front of a crowd of Christians filling his prayer up with a bunch of thee's and thou's, it doesn't compare to two or more close friends praying together. But again, only the start.

There's something about praying with friends. Back in high school, I remember praying with anyone about anything just about anytime of the day or night. I drove a custom van and as a Christian guy, I can assure you there was a lot more holding hands in prayer than any lip-lock action back "in the back" of that van. Some friends called me Camel Knees. I remember one time a buddy and I prayed for another buddy who was about to preach a revival. Kneeling down in the back of the van I heard a definite rrrrriiiiiippp sound. Yep. Split my jeans to where if I didn't end up walking like an Asian woman in traditional attire I'd have looked like a whitetail deer. Really short strides. Those were fun days.

The same was true in college. Lots of good memories praying together with friends. I seem to remember praying together on dates. Hmmm... maybe that's why I didn't get married until I was almost 35! But I've always felt spiritual intimacy was more important than physical or even emotional intimacy.

For a couple of summers I made money for school selling a boat hull cleaner that Dad designed. Working through northeast Louisiana, I was needing some prayer. All this learning how to sell as a teenager in a van full of cleaning chemicals was eating my lunch! It was like I was drowning and needed a big gulp of air. I went to see my cousins Baby and Clare in Mer Rouge with one thing on my mind... prayer!

I hit the door, got a couple of hugs and blurted out that I needed us to pray together. They were still in "visiting mode" but before we even sat down to catch up as kinfolk, we prayed together. Standing there in the doorway between the breakfast room and the den, the three of us held hands and prayed. And I got a big gulp of air. Yep... I was gonna live!

Yesterday I was reminded of a time just after graduation from OBU when I was working in Wichita Falls. I really needed to spend some time praying with friends. No specific prayer need or anything. I just longed to come together as friends in prayer. I flew over 400 miles just to get to pray with a buddy.

Yeah, it meant that much.

Somewhere along the way, times in prayer with friends got fewer and fewer. My biggest dream of marriage was having an instant "two or mother gathered in My Name". To have a prayer partner pretty much anytime was a dream to me!

But marriage seemed to change things. Living together put life in a different light. I found it harder to ask her to pray with me after I had just behaved like a jerk. And as the walls grew in each of our hearts, prayer together just didn't happen. I tried a few times but it was forced and stiff. It wasn't free anymore. It was harder and harder to become vulnerable in our spirits. Getting naked spiritually was scary in that I realized I wasn't too pretty to look at.

In my rebound marriage from hell, we prayed some before saying "I do" but after I moved in and the upheaval of day to day life started to overwhelm us, prayer together was like pulling teeth.

I contend that without that spiritual intimacy our marriage was doomed. Even if we had remained husband and wife, we would have never really become even half of what He intended. More co-habitating than true partners in life. To me, that's when a marriage becomes something dynamic... when two people can experience a real adventure in praying together. When they can be "naked and unafraid". I found to be naked spiritually was scarier than to get undressed physically.

I'll be quite frank, praying together in recent years has been tough. I was flat out rejected in prayer by my ex (my second ex-wife, the one from the rebound marriage from hell!) To be rejected physically is one thing but to be rejected spiritually is even tougher. For a long time I didn't even feel like praying with my friend "the nun". And she's the type to stop in the middle of Home Depot and pray for someone who needs it. Yet, it felt too risky for me to even pray with her for a while. It touched on wounds that were still healing.

It took a while but for me to risk praying together again but God has given me some friends who enjoy praying. I'm learning again the joy of laying my heart bare before the Lord, with another Christian there in agreement that Jesus is Lord over both of our lives. I'm again enjoying sharing not just our needs but our praise and worship and thanksgiving and adoration and everything else on our hearts... as well as listening to Him. That's when prayer takes off and really soars to me. It's when we chat like a regular conversation, something one person says sparking something for the other. Not just the old 'you start and I'll close' type prayer.

To me, it is living. Really living.

As adults, it doesn't come naturally to get that "real" in prayer. But, it is worth the effort. Give it a try!