Three Prayer Meetings

The first one

   For the first fifteen years of my Christian life, I played follow-the-leader where prayer was concerned. In my desire to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ, I somehow found myself following others instead of following Him.

   My Christian life began when I was a sophomore in high school. Mother took me to a youth conference where I gave my heart and my life to Jesus Christ. In the next chapter I shall tell you some of what happened when I unconsciously began imitating other Christians. But before I began following people there was one shining moment about which I want to tell you.

   On a snowy North Dakota night, I had a difficult choice to make for a girl of fifteen. In the little town where I was born, there was a party at one house and a cottage prayer meeting at another on the same night. I chose the cottage prayer meeting.

   The little brown frame house was packed with people. I looked around, as teenagers do, and couldn't spot a single person my age. My first thought was to get out, but the house was too small and too crowded. Anyway, hadn't I already made my choice? And God knew, didn't He, when I asked Him where to go that Friday night, that there wouldn't be anyone my age at the meeting?

   I stayed. There was a Bible reading. Then everyone knelt. So did I. Sometimes I felt I was only an onlooker. How did they know when to pray? Who told them? My heart beat faster. Should I pray, too? Where, I asked my-

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self, did that idea come from? Me pray aloud? In front of all those people? When I was the only teenager present? Probably no one even knew I was there.

   Faster and faster went my heart. The person who had been praying for some time stopped. There was silence. No. No. No! I couldn't break it! Let someone else do it. Cautiously I asked myself, who am I arguing with about this thing? Myself? Could it be that God was asking me to pray aloud in front of all these people? What difference could it make to God if I did or if I didn't?

   While I was still struggling with my thoughts and my objections, an older lady began to pray. I sighed with temporary relief.

   Why, I said to myself, she can't even speak English! No one can understand a word she is saying, and here she is praying where people can hear her. I listened some more. A sentence or two in German, then a smattering of English, then more German.

   I withheld further judgment and listened again. Suddenly I felt my heart was being held in God's hand. The old German lady was crying! And she wasn't ashamed to be praying or crying. And the tenderness in her voice told me that her tears were not those of frustration, but of real love for her Lord. She was speaking to Him. Not to us. And He was there. I knew it. He was there.

   The rapid conversation in my heart went on: And you can speak English and you belong to God in a new way since last June and are you still afraid? That was enough. I recognized the voice of Jesus, Lover that He is. I would pray aloud, and I would speak straight to Him. I would not be afraid and I would not care if there were tears, and I would not care if my words got tangled up and I would not care if my prayer was like the others or if it wasn't. I would forget all those people and just think about Him.

   And I did. "Dear Lord Jesus . . ." I heard myself praying aloud for the first time in my life. And I did cry and my

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words did get tangled, but it was all right. I had spoken to Him. He was there.

   He had been there all the time I was arguing with myself. And He was there when I spoke to Him aloud with other people listening.

   As the snow crunched under my feet that cold winter night on my way home, my heart was warm with the freshness of talking with Jesus Christ. I had met Him. I had had my first flash of insight about prayer.

   Perhaps I understood as only the very young understand easily, that He meant it when He said,

. . . where two or three

are gathered together in my

name, there am I

in the midst of them.

The second one

   After that first "shining moment" when I knew that prayer was talking person to person with the Lord Jesus, I was no longer afraid to pray aloud. He loved me and I loved Him, and all the world was new, and I was young and life was good.  I wanted to be the best kind of Christian there was. I wanted to learn how to pray in the right way, and began to keep my ears open to see how other people prayed and what they said and how they said it.

   Since I was no longer afraid to pray in public, it was easy to pick up pointers and to begin to use them. Several things impressed me right away: The language people used, and the way they addressed God. I also noticed that when the pastor's wife prayed, people said "Amen" and "Yes, Lord." When she said the right thing they seemed to be encouraged and agreed with her and said so. It bothered me for a while, but soon I found myself praying like Mrs. O. and wanting to say things that would make people say "Amen" to my prayers, too.

   Apparently, the tone of voice was something to watch,

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if one wanted to be really fervent in prayer. An unconsciously dramatic tone which was different and pitched higher than the usual conversation voice seemed preferable. This tone kept climbing and climbing until it reached a climax of some kind, and then came down and started again. It sounded like a good way to persuade God that one meant business.

   God knows I was in dead earnest over the whole matter. I think I got rather restless sometimes, but I wouldn't have admitted it to anyone for the world. The first inkling I had of this restlessness was once when I heard a dear sister in the church pray. She climbed the heights and prayed around the world. Suddenly I "heard" the tone of her voice, and thought to myself, if I didn't know who is praying, I wouldn't know it was Mrs. R. I wonder if God wants us to talk to Him in that unnatural tone of voice? How can we be our real selves with Him if we pray like that?

   I was shocked at myself for thinking such thoughts. But the idea persisted.

   "How can God talk to you when you are praying, if you are shouting at Him like that? Why don't you give Him a chance to say a word?" I was a bit uneasy, I'll admit, trying to answer that one. But I put it carefully aside, because who was I to try to reform the prayer meeting? Besides, "being spiritual" was pretty important to me, because I was just at the age when being approved meant everything.

   It was a glorious day when I was "approved" by a foreign missionary society and sent to China at the age of twenty as a secretary in the missionary office. I was deeply sincere in that I felt this was where God was guiding me to work for Him, and I tried with my whole heart to enter into all that pertained to the mission work.

   On the field there was the regular Friday night staff prayer meeting. The entire evening was devoted to this meeting. We sang, had a message from the Bible, a time

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of talking over problems concerning the work among the Chinese, and then we prayed. Everyone prayed, and the prayers were long and detailed and no one missed that meeting unless he was ill.

   As I look back upon it now, I remember the devotion and sincerity of my own heart, and I still deeply love the friends I made then.

   We were all together on our knees in the same room, each with love for the other, and each with a common purpose. But I began to realize we were each making a little speech to the Lord when our turn came. I know we were supposed to pray silently with the one who was praying audibly, but when we all covered the same ground — well, I found that I was trying to think how I could start my prayer with more "colorful" words. How I could put more "action" into my prayer, how I could make it sound more "spiritual," and how I could take hold of the promises with more faith than the others. I wanted to word it differently from the persons who had prayed before me, and make it sound more important and interesting.

   God forgive me for the pride that wanted my prayer to be different! God forgive me for the times I deliberately planned my opening paragraph just to make it sound better than the others!

   And God forgive me for the times I used to choose a chair near the bookcases, so that (kneeling in prayer) when things got dull, I could quietly glance through the shelves and make a mental note, and often a penciled note, of the books I wanted to read.

   And God forgive me for the times I actually pulled out a book, and using my jacket around my shoulders as a shield, leafed through some of the books during the prayer meeting.

   God forgive me, too, for the times I just plain fell asleep on my knees during those long sessions of prayer. After my turn was over, it wasn't too hard to do.

   The years of service on the field piled up. The prayer

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meetings piled up. My rebellions piled up. And yet knowing the sincerity and the depth of the spiritual lives of those with whom I worked and prayed, I couldn't bring myself to admit my rebellion. Neither could I really face the shallowness of my own prayer life.

   I was doing the best I knew. Wasn't that all the Lord expected of me?

The third one

   Through a near fatal illness and other disrupting events, God began to take care of my rebellions through His great love. He began to teach me to listen to His voice.

   This third prayer meeting, which was so simple and yet to be so revolutionary, took place a few months after my time as a mission office secretary ended. I was living in Peiping, China, studying the language and trying to identify myself with the Chinese people in every possible way.

   Very soon, a group of high school and college students were asking for instruction in English, and they were interested in reading the English New Testament. Needing help, I called on my long-time friend Mildred Rice, who was living on the same mission compound. We divided the group and met regularly with them.

   The young people brought their problems to us, and quite naturally Mildred and I began taking them to the Lord in prayer together.

   One never-to-be-forgotten afternoon, we knelt in my little Chinese apartment to pray for several of these students by name, and for the class that evening.

   As I remember, Mildred was praying for Ming-lee in a situation that concerned her sister-in-law. Now I'd forgotten to tell Mildred that Ming-lee had sent a little note to me that morning, and that the situation for which Mildred was praying had already been cleared up. Her prayer was already answered and she didn't know it!

   Without thinking, I interrupted her prayer, and continued it as mine, "We thank Thee, Lord, that Thou hast

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already answered that prayer. Ming-lee has already been able to forgive her sister-in-law."

   I stopped, startled by my own audacity at interrupting Mildred's prayer. There was a moment of silence, and then with great relief both of us sat back and laughed.

   "Why, isn't that something!" said Mildred, meaning both the early answer to her prayer, and the natural, spontaneous way in which the news about Ming-lee had popped out.

   We settled down to pray again, but with a sense of joy, of lightness, of the Lord's presence very near.

   I prayed, "Lord, art Thou trying to teach us something through this incident? Should we give Thee more opportunity while we are praying to get Thy ideas through to us? Would that give the Holy Spirit more opportunity to guide us as we pray?"

   Then with the freedom which comes with a new discovery, I stopped praying and spoke to Mildred.

   "Do you know what? I believe the Lord taught us something just now! Instead of each of us making a prayer-speech to Him, let's talk things over with Him, back and forth, including Him in it, as we do when we have a conversation."

   She took it right up, "Yes, and we could bring up one person or one situation at a time, and both of us pray back and forth about it, until we feel we have touched God, until our hearts are at rest."

   I agreed with her thoroughly and said so. But by then I was excitedly remembering something else and had my Bible, hunting a passage in Matthew. There it was.

Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall

agree on earth as touching any thing that they

shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father

which is in heaven.

For where two or three are gathered together in

my name, there am I in the midst of them.

Matthew 18:19, 20

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   We were definitely on holy ground and we knew it. In a few moment of silence then, we both turned our attention to the Lord Jesus, who being alive and with us and in us had just told us again,

Where two . . . are gathered

in my name

there am I

in the midst of them.

   This time we understood Him in a new way.

   Quietly, reverently and with a sharp consciousness that Another was with us, we began to converse with Him about our friends. All the "padding" of unnecessary prayer-language slipped away. We spoke face to face, feeling certain that He cared for the ones we brought to Him. There seemed to be no need of the final Amen at the close of each prayer. We were just talking with Him and with each other. I spoke, and she spoke, and we waited for Him to reply in that still, small voice within our hearts.

   We were in His presence.

   We were talking to and with Him.

   As we knelt there that afternoon in my Chinese apartment, I experienced a memory flash-back. I remembered that first "shining moment" when I spoke to Jesus Christ at the little cottage prayer meeting in North Dakota. After all these years, He was giving my "shining moment" back to me, but with a new reality because I was older.

   I worshiped Him in silent wonder, knowing that from now on there need be no more dullness, no more self-conscious conformity, no more imitation.

   This was not a new technique we had stumbled upon. It was too natural and too familiar to be new. Perhaps it was merely an unexpected turning back to the kind of child-like communion with Him which God intended in the first place.

   We didn't think this far that day. We were just overjoyed.

Chapter Two  ||  Table of Contents