Thursday night
I've been trying all semester to make it to the prayer group that meets Thursday nights at Taylor, and this week I finally did. First of all, the group itself is incredible. It is actually a real community, which is, sadly, hard to find at our community-focused Christian school. We praised God together, we shared stories of how He had been working in our lives over the past week, we heard a teaching on healing prayer, and then we divided into groups (you could choose to join a circle of discussion, intercession, prophetic prayer, or healing). I hope to be able to go consistently next semester.
But it was actually afterward that God really spoke to me. I was walking up the stairs in my dorm behind a girl I didn't know at all, and she noticed me and said "-Hey- you were at Thursday night!" She introduced herself and asked what I thought of my first time there. Then she told me- and God's timing is incredible that we were on the staircase at just the same moment- that she had been feeling strongly that she was supposed to pray for me, but didn't get a chance during the meeting. So, she prayed for me then.
It was hard to believe we had only met minutes before, and she knew absolutely nothing about me. The things she prayed for were so specific, exactly the areas where I desperately need prayer right now. They were also things that I don't share with anyone, sometimes not even myself. Obviously the Spirit was giving her words to pray; she would never have prayed for all those things without the Spirit's intercession. What this means is incredible, because it implies that the Spirit knew the words to give her. God knows me. I mean, He really knows me. He knows the part of me that I don't show to other people. Of course I know that God knows me, that He created me, etc, etc, but for the most part I know that He knows me in the same way that I know that an electron behaves both as a particle and a wave- it's an abstract concept that can be diagramed and supported and defined, but is never quite explained satisfactorily. The only way that someone could really understand electron behavior—and I mean really understand on a deeply intimate level of understanding and experience—would be to actually see one. I just read over that, and it’s a terrible illustration, but now it’s too late to pick a new one so hang with me. When Angela prayed for me, it was her voice but God’s words; they must have been His words, because they couldn’t possibly have been hers. I actually heard Him tell me about myself. I saw a glimpse of the depth of His relationship with me, the relationship I’m created for and have thus far only begun to scratch the surface of. God actually knows me. Let me pause a minute while I attempt, for the hundredth time in the past few days, to understand that truth. He knows me more than I know myself. He wants to know me, He considers me worth knowing, me, foolish, lost, confused, wandering. God knows me, and that fact moves me to tears.
Lord and King, I don’t even deserve your recognition, much less your intimate attention. I’m overwhelmed with gratefulness and bewilderment. Any attempt at expressing my awestruck, unworthy gratefulness weak and foolish compared to what you deserve, so I won’t even attempt to put it to words except to say thank you. Thank you, thank you.
k. rose
But it was actually afterward that God really spoke to me. I was walking up the stairs in my dorm behind a girl I didn't know at all, and she noticed me and said "-Hey- you were at Thursday night!" She introduced herself and asked what I thought of my first time there. Then she told me- and God's timing is incredible that we were on the staircase at just the same moment- that she had been feeling strongly that she was supposed to pray for me, but didn't get a chance during the meeting. So, she prayed for me then.
It was hard to believe we had only met minutes before, and she knew absolutely nothing about me. The things she prayed for were so specific, exactly the areas where I desperately need prayer right now. They were also things that I don't share with anyone, sometimes not even myself. Obviously the Spirit was giving her words to pray; she would never have prayed for all those things without the Spirit's intercession. What this means is incredible, because it implies that the Spirit knew the words to give her. God knows me. I mean, He really knows me. He knows the part of me that I don't show to other people. Of course I know that God knows me, that He created me, etc, etc, but for the most part I know that He knows me in the same way that I know that an electron behaves both as a particle and a wave- it's an abstract concept that can be diagramed and supported and defined, but is never quite explained satisfactorily. The only way that someone could really understand electron behavior—and I mean really understand on a deeply intimate level of understanding and experience—would be to actually see one. I just read over that, and it’s a terrible illustration, but now it’s too late to pick a new one so hang with me. When Angela prayed for me, it was her voice but God’s words; they must have been His words, because they couldn’t possibly have been hers. I actually heard Him tell me about myself. I saw a glimpse of the depth of His relationship with me, the relationship I’m created for and have thus far only begun to scratch the surface of. God actually knows me. Let me pause a minute while I attempt, for the hundredth time in the past few days, to understand that truth. He knows me more than I know myself. He wants to know me, He considers me worth knowing, me, foolish, lost, confused, wandering. God knows me, and that fact moves me to tears.
Lord and King, I don’t even deserve your recognition, much less your intimate attention. I’m overwhelmed with gratefulness and bewilderment. Any attempt at expressing my awestruck, unworthy gratefulness weak and foolish compared to what you deserve, so I won’t even attempt to put it to words except to say thank you. Thank you, thank you.
k. rose
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