Mystery

The focal point of the prayer tent is the cross. People who’ve had lots of experience praying often say that having a visual focal point can help our concentration.

Just 45 Days

I feel so proud of you: you are really taking this up, this call to come continuously into God’s presence for 45 days. Only one shift during today and tomorrow remains to be filled. While it may seem strange to put it this way, I especially feel proud of your humility.

His Garment

The richness and the texture of what’s happening is very beautiful to me, and I know that I’m only fingering a few inches of the hem. What variety! A “coat of many colors.” One of the reasons it isn’t possible to describe what happens in and through that prayer tent is because it’s different every hour. Sometimes it’s different within an hour. 

Crossing to the Other Side

An ice storm our first night of 24/45. Interesting.

One evening, while teaching a large crowd, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s go over to the other side.” I sense that many of us are hoping to cross over to the other side during the next 45 days — the other side of our fears, the other side of our addictions, over to the side of being a 24/7 follower of Jesus, the other side of whatever it was that we wrote on that piece of paper and put on the cross during the Ash Wednesday Service last night.

Goal or Destination?

At 9:00 this evening, about an hour after our Ash Wednesday Service ends, Jennifer Smith will quietly slip into the prayer tent to begin our 24/45 prayer journey. There won’t be any Launch this time. We know how this works. We know what we have to do.

What to Expect

One more day to 24/45.

Don’t expect 24/45 to simply be an upgrade of 24/7. That first week of 24 hour relay prayer was exciting, in part, because we’d never experienced anything like this before. The last few months Sharon has been making me cookies for a mid-morning snack. (When you eat breakfast at 4:30, noon is a long time to wait for the next meal.) While I’ve never been that fond of cookies (hard to believe, eh, Bob?), this is an Amish recipe that isn’t very sweet and that sits well with my finicky stomach.

Walking Forward into the Past

During yesterday’s sermon I reflected on what a conversation God had with Abraham might have to teach us about our upcoming 24/45 prayer event. I suggested that during these 45 days God was going to teach us how to trust his promises, how to live with God (specifically how to walk before God, with God as the subject and us as the object), and how to come under the knife (i.e. circumcision of the heart).