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.”

Prayer power

A railroad track skirts one edge of the nature trail park where we like to walk. Sometimes, a train rumbles past, and my husband starts counting aloud the number of cars behind the engines. The more cars behind, the greater the engine power needed up front.

My first thought was of the energy I need for the busy days when I have lots on my to-do list, including the privilege of caring for a busy, curious toddler grandson. As a friend of mine likes to say, “I’m not complaining, just explaining.” I also thought about the prayer burdens so many of us carry. Historians tell us that the great Protestant reformer Martin Luther practiced long prayer before each day.  He reportedly said, “If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day.” 

Two hours! I'm no "Luther." But I do find time drags when I get bogged down praying for people with difficult issues. Yet, when I simply sit and praise God for who He is and thank Him for what He has done and is going to do, time passes without my thinking of it. The power of praise and adoration was also a favorite topic of Nazi concentration camp survivor and inspirational writer/speaker Corrie ten Boom. She wrote, “Be sure you remain covered with a canopy of praise.  It is like a tent over and around you. Satan has no entrance as long as you pin down the sides by praying, and thank God for His wonderful promises.”(1)

Admonitions to praise God go way, way back.  In her book Karen! Karen!, author/speaker Karen Mains quoted from a translation of one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, giving instructions for those living in the long-ago hermetic desert community: 
As long as I live, it shall be a rule engraved on my tongue to bring praise like fruit for an offering and my lips as a sacrificial gift.
As the scroll continues, it instructs adherents to recite the Ten Commandments morning and evening, and bless God's name continually as the day progresses, not just before meals. From life's daily rhythms, the writer moved to harder things:
When fear and terror come, and there is only anguish and distress, I will still bless and thank Him for His wondrous deeds, and meditate upon His power, and lean upon His mercies all day long. For I know that in His hand is justice for all that live, and all His works are true. So when trouble comes, or salvation,  I praise Him just the same.(2)

To borrow the train analogy, if I have enough “engines” of praise up front, it’s easier to pull the loads (“problems”) behind. Praise also reminds me that it's not all about "me pulling the load," but turning these concerns and "impossibilities" over to God. He's the Engineer and the source of Power,  not me!

(1)Corrie ten Boom, Her Story (New York: Inspiration Press, 1995), p. 446.
(2) Karen Mains, Karen! Karen! (Wheaton: Tyndale, 1979), pp. 148-49.