In my last post in this series, I wrote about how the kids in the Daraja Choir (and their chaperones for that matter) seem to pray from a different place — a place of gratitude. I wrote about how different that was from the place I often pray. I’ve spent some time thinking about why their prayers are so different from mine and I think the answer is pretty simple.

We’re praying to a different God.

My Kenyan friends spend their entire lives being grateful. They are grateful for everything, big, small, seen and unseen. These young men are thankful for the fact that they woke up, that they have fresh air to breathe, clean water to drink, and food to eat. They are thankful for shelter at night.

When they left our house they left a note saying things like, “Thank you so much for taking care of us.” “Thank you for your hospitality and caring for us like your own children.” And the one that gets me every time, “I really do not have a better way to describe what I want to say in words, coz words aren’t good enough to thank you for what you have done and been to us.”

Seriously?

I didn’t do anything for them.

I had hoped to do a lot, but Eddy was sick and so we stayed home instead of doing some of the things we had planned like rock wall climbing. Yet, they were thankful just to have been in our home.

See, my problem is that I am rarely that grateful for anything.  I can’t remember the last time I was thankful for the fact that I woke up, had air to breathe, a bed to sleep in, food to eat, or a place to stay. And the truth is by any standard, I’ve had more of these things and better of these things for longer than any of these young men.

But I’ve also never appreciated them the way they do.

If I am deeply honest, I often see gratitude as a pre-cursor to getting more. “Thank you for the birthday gift!” “Thanks for that compliment.” “Thanks for retweeting me.” My thank-you’s are often thinly disguised manipulations for encores, they’re rarely professions of extreme gratitude.

Perhaps this explains why my prayers seem so shallow compared to my Kenyan friends’ prayers. When they pray they are praying out of gratitude. They were so grateful to God for every little thing they have been given. When they pray, they pray in disbelief that the God who reigns is so good to them.

When I pray to God, I am hoping that more of what I am thankful for will continue to rain down.

My Daraja friends believe in a good God who reigns above everything. I believe in a God who rains down good stuff on me. It’s no wonder my prayer life is so shallow–my God is too.

Lord, help me to see you like my Kenyan friends see you. Help me to know that everything I have from the first breath I breathe in the morning, to the pillow I lay my head on at night and everything in between comes from you. I’ve done nothing to deserve anything I have. It’s only by your grace that I live and breathe. Help me to understand you like my Kenyan friends understand you — as the King who reigns in glory. Forever. Amen.

Who do you say prayers of thanks to? A god who rains down stuff or a God who reigns? And if God is the source of everything, how do you know the difference?

~Jennifer

This is part one in a series on things I learned from my friends in the Daraja Children’s Choir. You can get an overview and links to all posts here.

I’ve written two books on prayer.

I’ve spoken dozens of times on the subject.

I’ve taught Sunday school classes on prayer and been a part of hundreds of conversations on the topic.

In fact, in Six Prayers God Always Answers, my co-author Mark Herringshaw and I spent a lot of time telling people that there isn’t a right way to pray. You don’t have to say certain words, assume a specific posture, or be in a certain place. But I changed my mind about that this past weekend when my new Kenyan friends taught me that the place where prayer comes from is perhaps the most important aspect of praying.

I like to think I’m okay at prayer. I’m not shy to do it out loud in front of people, quietly at home, or in an email for that matter. But this weekend when the Kevin, Eddy, and Moses, twelve and thirteen year old boys from Kenya prayed, I was humbled by their prayers. And when Dan their chaperone (also from Kenya) prayed I was blown away by the depth of faith demonstrated in their prayers.

Unlike most adult Christians I’ve been around who pretend to tie their shoes when the leader asks, “Who wants to pray?” the boys were always eager to pray aloud. There wasn’t anything shy or intimidating about praying for them. They welcomed the opportunity. When they prayed, they spoke in quiet, hushed, reverential voices. They didn’t pray so that the people at the other end of the table could hear them. If I wanted to hear their prayers I had to still my heart and quiet my body because these boys prayed for an audience of one. Yet somehow those quiet words were more jarring than a plane that suddenly loses altitude.

With little accents that pronounced every consonant and every vowel they would pray, “Thank you, Gawd for the oxygen we breathe.”

For oxygen? I can honestly say, I’ve never thanked God for oxygen.

“Thank you Gawd that we are ali-vuh. We know that to be ali-vuh is a geeft from you.”

Being alive is a gift? And I would think to myself, What have these boys seen in their life that makes them wake up every morning thankful to be ali-vuh? I pray for my health, but usually only when I am sick, occasionally when I am feeling really great, but never just because I’m alive. When is the last time you thanked God for the geeft of your life?

As their prayer continued, they thanked God that they had a shelter for the night. Not, “Thanks for this house with beds and an Xbox 360.” For shelter.  They thanked God for the food on the table but not by saying, “Bless this to the nourishment of our bodies” like I and so many Christians do. Instead they humbly prayed, “Thank you, Gawd that we have food to eat.”

The Sunday lunch prayer really caught my attention. In that prayer, they prayed for the hands that had prepared the meal. This phrasing isn’t unique, I’ve heard others use it as a way of thanking Grandma for making the Christmas ham or as a pseudo-blessing on the church volunteers who cooked the Sunday meal. But the boys only used this phrase once and it wasn’t when I had prepared their meal, it was when we ate fast-food from Wendy’s.

As they prayed, an fireworks of conviction popped in my head. When is the last time I prayed for a fast-food worker?

Truth be told, the only time I even acknowledge fast-food employees is when I am complaining about something they did wrong. To take the time to pray for their hands, hands that weren’t even at the table to hear us, is so, uh, well, un-American. When we pray we want the beneficiary of our prayer to know we’re praying for them like we get some kind of spiritual or relational points for acknowledging them before God. Two points if I remember to thank Grandma, three if I remember Grandpa too.

If that’s the way I pray, just how sick am I?

The other meals the boys ate, I prepared myself (and by “myself” I mean prepared frozen food). I am not the world’s best cook, so what I lack in quality, I try to make up in quantity. If I served one type of fruit, I served three types. If there was bread, there were two loaves. The beverage choices were practically unlimited. Somehow, I thought that would make up for my inability to create gourmet meals. But no matter how much food was on the table, the boys ate just enough to meet their physical requirements.

This is important when you know what they prayed after they thanked God that they had food to eat. They would always pray, “And Gawd, please remember our brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers back in Kenya. Help them to find enough money today that they might also have food today.”

Are you crying yet?

Because it was about this point in their prayer that my stomach would do flips and my eyes would start to water. I’d dream about packing large crates of food and addressing it to “Moses, Kevin, Dan, and Eddy’s Families.” And anyone else who is hungry.  I know there are starving people in the world, but I didn’t know them until I met their sons.

I wanted to overturn my kitchen table out of anger that I have so much and they have so little. Had I been in their place, I would have been so bitter. Guest me would have lectured host me on waste. I would have begged and guilted host me into sending money to my hungry family and friends at home. I would have turned on “Gawd” asking why he did so much for host me and so little for Kenyan me. But these thoughts never seemed to cross the boys’ minds. They were grateful that they had a meal. And they trusted God that he would provide for those who didn’t.

No blame.

No guilty-finger pointing at those of us who had more.

No, “I’m not going to eat because my family can’t,” show of solidarity. Just acceptance and quiet prayer for those who didn’t have their food they had at this meal.

See, here’s the thing; I don’t even know how to thank God for my food. Because I don’t know what it’s like not to have it.

Sure I’ve fasted for medical or spiritual reasons, but I knew there was an end. And I knew my child was eating. I can’t imagine the horror of not knowing if or when you would eat again, let alone being a Kenyan mother watching her child cry because of the pains in his empty stomach.

Food to me is like oxygen. It’s in abundant supply and I can have whatever I want whenever I want it and I don’t think about it because there’s enough for everyone else in the room too.

In other words, I take it all for granted. My oxygen, my food, and the geeft of my life.

So when it comes to prayer, I am not sure I’ve ever prayed from a place where I was really grateful for what God has given me. Frankly, I’m not sure I’ve ever done more than repeat trite and often used phrases when I prayed. Hearing my new Kenyan friends pray opened up my eyes (and my heart) to the place God wants us to be when we approach him at his throne.

These young men take nothing for granted, not their life, not the oxygen they breathe, nor the food they eat. And when everything is a gift, you thank the giver for it. That’s why these Kenyan friends pray differently than I do.

They pray from a different place than I do — a place of gratitude.

Lesson #1 from the Kenyans:  The place of prayer matters.

Do you recognize yourself in this post? Are you one who prays from gratitude or are you perhaps more like me and pray from a place of entitlement and apathy? Where do you pray from?

~Jennifer

When I was in high school, I had a stalker.

“Leif” was in my grade and while we weren’t really good friends, we were certainly really good acquaintances. But Leif took things to a new level when he started stalking me. He would show up at Coach House Gifts when I was working and pretend to be shopping, eyeing me from across the card aisle while I tried to ignore him. Several hours later when I would leave to go to my car, he’d just happen to be driving around the mall parking lot slipping on a Slurpee purchased from the vendor where I had dinner.

At school, he knew what classes I took and waited outside of the door for me. He followed me to marching band practices and waited for me after drama and choir rehearsals. In the summer, he would drive by my house and call the moment I walked in the door. He knew where I was almost all the time.

I suppose it should have creeped me out. But the truth was, I kind of enjoyed the attention. (I wasn’t very popular in high school, don’t judge me). After awhile, I got so used to him following me around that if he wasn’t waiting for me when I left, I would feel sad–like I was no longer desirable enough to be stalked.

But my current stalker is nothing like Leif from high school. . .

The current stalker is much more stealth. I rarely see him, but somehow he enters my thoughts. Often I try to fight him away but it usually does no good. He finds sneaky, clandestine ways to let me know he is near me. Very near me. In fact, he is so good at stalking me without being seen, I’d say he’s more like a ghost who haunting my head.

Haunting Thoughts

For example, I’ll be talking to someone and suddenly a thought will cross my mind, like “You should pray for this person.” I’ll think to myself, I can pray later. But the ghost is a rather impatient spirit and so what follows feels more like a command than a suggestion. “Pray for this person right now.”

Fine, I think. They’re just talking about their stuff, they won’t know if I tune out to say a quick prayer.

But the voice will interrupt me, “Pray OUT LOUD.” (And yes, the thought-stalker does occasionally speak in all caps.)

Outloud? I think. That’s just weird. What if this person doesn’t believe in prayer? Or even God? What if I offend them? What if I pray for something and it doesn’t happen, then I’ll really look stupid!

But that voice in my head is a pushy little thing and continues to insist that I pray for the person right then and there. Sometimes I do. And sometimes I don’t. And when I don’t, it leads to the second kind of stalking.

Hijacked Thoughts

The moment passes without me doing what the voice prompted so the spirit ratchets it up a notch.

You should have prayed for her. The thought echos over and over in my mind. Only now instead of the ghost whispering, I begin talking to myself.

“I know, I know. But I thought it would be awkward to break into the conversation with a ‘Can I pray for you right now?’ I mean what would she say? ‘No?’ She has to let me pray whether she likes it or not.”

Pretty soon these kinds of thoughts have hijacked my brain. And this is exactly what that little thought stalker wants. More room for him, less for me. But controlling my mind isn’t enough. This ghost wants my body too.

Physical Haunting

Sometimes I do everything right. I immediately pray when prompted and I don’t have to be told twice. But even then my prayers can be preyed on.

For example, I’ll be riding in the car and a song will come on with the lyrics “take my life and let it be, all for you and for your glory,” and I’ll think, I should make that a prayer. So the next time the chorus comes around I sing even louder and more off-key than usual and in the privacy of my mind (which I don’t use when I sing–also explaining the off-key part) I pray, Yes, that’s what I want. Use me Lord however you can for your glory.

About this time, I’ll slow to stop at the red light and look to my right and see a homeless man with a sign that says, “Any amount will help.” And so I reach over and turn the volume up even louder to sing about how I’ll do anything for God’s glory.

Occasionally, it hits me before the light changes, but unfortunately I am often a mile away before I realize what just happened. I was supposed to be the answer to that man’s prayer.

And there are other physical manifestations.

Late one night a friend tweeted that he was having a hard time sleeping. I knew he had a big day the next day so I tweeted back that I would pray for him and I did. But for the rest of that night, I couldn’t sleep.

My friend slept fine, I’m guessing by the silence of his tweets, but somehow in praying for his sleep, I traded in mine. I blame the ghost. I think he was testing me to see how serious I was about following his orders. So just to show him, I prayed for my friend all night.

In fact, this happened again yesterday. My dear friend “Thomas” has a young son, “Jake” who had recently been diagnosed with diabetes. Jake had to take shots for the disease several times a day and for a young boy nothing is worse than getting poked with a needle. But yesterday, Jake got an insulin pump which meant no more shots.

My friend Thomas knew that I would understand what a big deal this was for Jake. I was diagnosed with diabetes nearly 35 years ago when I was eight, so of course I understood.

I also understood when Thomas asked me if I would pray, not only for Jake and his new pump, but for stamina for Thomas. The new pump meant that Thomas or his wife will have to get up every couple of hours for the first few nights and then at least once a night for the next several weeks to make sure everything is working properly. And since Thomas’s wife is out of town this week, it means Thomas is getting up every couple of hours for multiple nights in a row until she gets home.

No wonder he asked me to pray.

And I did.

I did it right then and there. I typed and emailed a prayer to Thomas as I prayed it.

And I promised to continue praying for him.

And I meant it.

But the truth is, I have no idea what it feels like to be as sleep-deprived as Thomas is (and will continue to be). In fact, I’ve been getting to bed earlier than usual this week, so perhaps my stalker realized that I didn’t even really understand what I was praying for.

That’s when the haunting began. Last night between 11:30 PM and 6:00 AM when I was supposed to be sleeping, the alarm on my pump went off. Seven times! I would be in a deep sleep and hear the alarm, wake myself up, clear it, and reset the pump. Then I would close my eyes and. . .

I would think of Thomas and Jake and think how they probably weren’t sleeping either. The ghost voice would then prompt me to pray. Though I longed to go back to sleep, I would stay awake a few minutes longer to think about what my friend was going through and pray for him in a new way, because now I could feel his needs in a way I couldn’t just a few hours earlier.

So, no, this stalker isn’t anything like Leif who kept an eye on me and kept his distance. This stalker wants as much of me as I will give him. He wants his spirit to take over my whole body, but the key is he won’t do it by force, he wants me to allow him to do it–making it my idea. Clever isn’t he?

But though this ghost leads me into many more awkward, embarrassing, and sleep-deprived situations than Leif ever did, I realize I don’t want him to leave either. He is teaching me more about myself, how to give when I don’t feel like giving, and how to in some completely incomprehensible way to trade my comfort for the pain of others. It’s not a pretty process, but somehow I think it makes me more desirable.

What about you? Have you ever felt stalked by a ghost? Been preyed on by prayer? Or had a spirit pursue you? And if so, how did you respond?

~Jennifer