“When a doctoral student at Princeton asked, “What is there left in the world for original dissertation research?” Albert Einstein replied, “Find out about prayer. Somebody must find out about prayer.”*

I have to admit that in my years of life and ministry, prayer has always baffled me. Never more than the time I think I had people across the U.S. praying for my 2nd son, Daniel Jeremiah (DJ) for healing and a quick recovery after his premature birth and well, you know the story…he wasn’t healed, as a matter a fact, he came out of the hospital worse and to this day, after 27 surgeries he is still blind, has CP and hydrocephalus. At that time, I thought prayer didn’t work. I lost my faith. I wanted to quit. But before long, the darkness I was in gave way to a bright light, the journey I thought I would never recover from ended up being the journey that revealed who I really was. Those moments of what I thought was emotional death actually brought forth spiritual life. The truth right now is that I still don’t know much about this thing called prayer. But before, I did it because that is what I thought I had to do to be a good Christian. I didn’t really ’study’ prayer. Come to think of it, I really didn’t question much as I grew up. A good Christian didn’t question or so I was indoctrinated to believe. Now having experienced two dramatic emotional painstaking life dramas, I question and yeah, I still think I am going to heaven. But I also “study” so that I can share insights with my soul but also the soul of others. It’s a good thing. This learning we do. I wish I would have done this as a younger person. When we are young we think we know it all. Funny thing is that when we get older, we realize we didn’t know a darn thing and God’s mercy kept us.

At our church, Wounded Healer, we are going back to the disciplines of the faith because they really do matter. But we want our folks to KNOW why the matter. One of the things we are studying now is prayer. I know that prayer is one of the keys to our personal relationship with God but why is it so difficult? I guess for me its that I am more unanswered questions than answered prayers. Yet, I choose to believe that God is good. That He really does have everything under control. I’ve also learned to accept that there will be more pain in life for some of us than joy, that some of us will lose more than gain and some of us will cry more than laugh. But still in all, God cares more about what we learn in those times and our response to those times than our comforts here on earth. I think that is something the Western Church and its people have lost.

We are so concerned with the significance of success. As a church planting pastor, we are very aware that the world in not so many words tells you that you are not successful unless you are a pastor of 500 or more (the number changes but who comes up with the number). Many pastors feel insignificant or as failures because they barely reach 100. My gut tells me the best is yet to come for my life and that of my church but its not going to come without its pain, its tears, its feelings of insignificance. But we are down for it because Hiram and I believe prayer will be the difference and we hope to have our lives, our ministry reflect that belief, even if we are the only ones who do it …even if we challenge everyone else to do it with us. Prayer, evangelism, praise and worship that is what will define Wounded Healer. We believe God gave us this vision, we’re going forward but its prayer…we have to find out about prayer. We need to take God at His word. But more importantly, we need to seek Him first. He cares more about us seeking Him not seeking Him for the answers…can we do that?

I know its a challenge, but my prayer is that we all learn more about prayer.

*quote taken from Prayer - Does It Really Make any Difference by Philip Yancey