The Keeping Room

Grooooan....sigh....ohhhh......There, you have the audio of me reacting to yet another crisis in the lives of people for whom I’d prayed for years.  I had become weary of praying for them in what seemed a never-ending negative drama.  There, I admitted it. How many times had I come to their names on my prayer list with a sense of gloom? Was God listening to how I thought things could be “fixed”?  Would things ever change for the better for them?  If I quit praying, would things go from bad to worse to terrible?

I actually thought those things—as if the world turned on my prayer life!  Talk about spiritual arrogance. Yet I really cared about these people and wanted to see God-pleasing changes in their lives—changes that would bring them a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11).  Would I be a spiritual slacker if I quit praying for them?

As I pondered these questions, I  came across some notes from reading Virelle Kidder’s book, Donkeys Still Talk (NavPress, 2004). The title of her book references Balaam’s talking donkey when Balaam resisted God’s instructions. Virelle had struggled with praying over loved ones’ needs that weighed heavily on her heart.  One day, she asked herself, “Why can I not carry those I love into the sanctuary of God’s power and love, lay them down at Jesus’ feet, and then leave in His divine safekeeping my broken dreams and the lives of those closest to me?”  And that is what she did, starting a page in her journal titled, “The Keeping Room.”  As she wrote names there, she prayed:

Lord, here is one I love and You love.  I leave him in Your keeping, asking that Your best be done in his life. I release him to You with great thanks and praise for all You will do, even if I am not privileged to see it. Keep him, Lord, in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.  (p. 149)
Virelle admitted that, despite that prayer of surrender, she sometimes wanted to peek through the keyhole and see what God was doing. But surrender meant letting God be God.

Yes, it is right to pray for others.  It is wrong to pray to the point of fretting.  It is right to take our most frustrating situations to God. It is wrong to keep grabbing them back, as doing so implies that God is incapable of handling them.  We need more of the holy abandon Paul articulated when he wrote, “I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard ["keep"--KJV] what I have entrusted to him for that day” (2 Timothy 1:12 NIV).

These were part of Paul’s “last words,” written to his protégé Timothy as the seasoned apostle realized he’d probably be executed by the Romans.  But he was not ashamed of the dramatic U-turn his life took in submitting to Christ. He was confident that God would take care of the spiritual children he’d leave behind when his life was taken.  In other words, Paul affirmed that he wasn’t the only person through whom God could work in advancing the Gospel.

I think that’s the big message behind a “keeping room.”  When we get discouraged or in a dither over praying for people with stubborn problems, God may need us to back off and allow Him to handle these loved ones with His wisdom and compassion.  Our prayers will move from “God, change them,” to “God, thank You that You love them infinitely more than I do.  I thank You for the way You are working in their troubled lives. I trust You for an outcome that glorifies You.”