Don’t give up that ground

I looked at the clock: 2:11pm. Just about time, I thought to myself with zero enthusiasm. I wiped the counters, stuck the last lunch-dish in the dishwasher, grabbed my Bible, and headed up the stairs. At the top, on the little landing, tucked away in an alcove, sits a rocking chair. This, I felt, was where God had called me to pray each afternoon from 2:15-2:45, a call that sounds simple enough, but that, I confess, too often has gone unheeded.

Ever since considering The Quiet Revival I’ve been deeply challenged to make prayer a greater priority. And, like many things, as soon as you really focus on growing at something you become painfully aware of how terrible you really are at it. How many of us have been inspired to run, only to set out and realize with utmost chagrin that we can’t even make it one mile.

Anybody else?

While I love my morning devotion times, and that is an established habit for 20 years now, I sensed that a dedicated intercession time was what God was calling me to, and this 30-minute window is the one time of day, every day, that we never have other commitments.

So I began with gusto.

It doesn’t take long for the excitement to wear off. The 1857 Revival didn’t happen overnight, if you recall. Nothing of significance usually does. And why is staying power so hard?

The day before, I had read it:

            Think about all the things that we do not follow through with. Many of us are good in crisis, but who can be found at the scene, still running maintenance on a situation long after emergency intervention has been performed?  Even in our everyday lives we take ground, only to become sloppy and lazy again.

            We diet, just to accomplish our goal weight, and then load up on cake and gain the pounds back. We save money, just to “splurge” on something that then leaves us without savings again. We organize, just to turn around the next day and begin the same cluttery piles on our desk. We purchase home-improvement materials that sit in the garage and collect dust. We bring home supplies for starting a new hobby only to leave them on a shelf and later donate—still in the package—to a thrift store because we have given up on ever making time to follow through. We make new “household rules” we don’t follow up on. We pay for gym memberships we don’t use. We buy cookbooks we don’t even open. We buy vitamins we don’t take. We set bedtimes, budgets, schedules, maintenance plans, even boundaries in relationships and friendships…then completely disregard them when it’s time for following through.

            But worse, we do this spiritually. We tell people we will pray for them, and then forget to do it. We say we’ll attend church and never get around to it. We don’t make time to read the Bible or prayer like we should. We turn a blind eye to those in need and say that we will do soething about their need tomorrow.

            In a crisis, we band together for the good of the issue we are facing. We pray, fast, encourage each other, attend special church services, give to emergency funds, and sometimes even protest or take visibly public actions to see our goals achieved. But once our goal is accomplished, we retreat to where we were before the calamity hit, leaving ground uncovered and vulnerable to reinvasion by the enemy.

Ouch. Just so true. I can think of several areas where this applies in my life, but prayer is where I feel the conviction most keenly.

To be fair, most days I had dragged myself up to the prayer corner, and done my best to faithfully lift up those things He’s called me intercede for. But how quickly we become discouraged when we don’t see result, when the time invested feels like a waste, especially when so many other things feel more urgent.

Anybody else?

So once again I dragged myself up to that chair. Of course immediately a child had a need, my phone rang, I became desperately thirsty. Half the spiritual battle is overcoming distractions! But then I prayed, and I wish I could say it was exhilarating, energizing, goose-bump inducing prayer. It wasn’t. I didn’t sense a supernatural presence, I had no visions, I heard no booming voice from heaven. But I did sense that somehow these simple acts of obedience matter, and God is calling us to faithfulness, above all. But how I longed to see some answer!

At 2:45 I finished up and went on my way. That night, at Bible study, we prayed specifically over several things, one of which was healing for a sick friend. There, I did sense more clarity, more power, maybe, just maybe, a tiny bit of, dare I say it … breakthrough?

Later, I crawled into bed. When I laid down, my left ear starting ringing loudly. I shifted, turned, unable to sleep because of the ringing.  This is silly, I thought, I just prayed for healing for someone in Jesus’ name, why don’t I ask for this ringing to stop?

So, I did. And immediately the ringing stopped. Completely. And I whispered thanks into the darkness because that was just what I needed. More than ringing stopped, more than a good night’s sleep, I needed assurance that He hears.

And He does. And He answers. And He simply asks us not to give up the ground we’ve gained. Not to grow weary, lazy, apathetic. To, quite simply, believe.

The next morning I checked on my friend. She was completely better, healed, just like we had prayed. Later that afternoon, another update popped up sharing an amazing and immediate answer to a specific prayer from the night before.

The kind whisper of the Father: “See, I hear. Don’t give up.”

So often in prayer we think in deceptively simple categories: Answered vs. Unanswered. We think “prayers that worked” and “prayers that didn’t.” But prayer is much more like a battlefield, gaining ground and holding it, or losing ground and giving up.

Courage and faith gain us ground, but faithfulness is what holds it. It what keeps us on keeping on, in the prayer closet of life where no one sees, day in and day out, engaging in quiet warfare.

Friend, what territory have you allowed the devil to steal back? What ground have you gained that has slowly been surrendered back to the enemy of our souls? Where have you grown weary and abandoned the good path of steady faithfulness He has called you to? Might I encourage you, as one who is also feeble and weak: God will empower you to live faithfully. To keep on keeping on. To refuse to give up the ground you’ve gained. Too much is at stake. Don’t give up.

{Thanks for reading.}