Mahatma Gandhi, who led India to independence through nonviolent resistance, once said, “It is better in prayer to have heart without words than words without heart.”
Fortunately, there are those who pray with heart AND words, like Sister Hill, the wife of one of my students, Pastor Willie Hill.
I teach a night class comprised mainly of African-American pastors and teachers. It’s not the first time I’ve taught this class over the past few years, and each time, I tell them they bless me much more than I do them.
We begin each session with intercessory prayer. This past week, I shared that my brother, Mark, who has ALS, had been in the hospital again as this horrible, debilitating, and terminal disease sneaks in each night like a thief, then bursts in each morning like a tyrant—stealing his life, destroying his body, tormenting his mind.
My voice may have cracked while I shared because Sister Hill spoke up. “Let’s just pause right now and pray.”
Not waiting for my answer, she rose to her feet and, joined by the class, circled close, some placing their hands on me. Wishing my brother could be there, I handed my cell phone to the youngest student and whispered, “Record her prayer for my brother.”
The Scripture tells us, “The effective prayer of a righteous person has great power” (James 5:16). Sister Hill prayed with “great power.” But the African-American pastors, in the spiritual tradition of their faith, joined her with “Amen,” “Yes Lord!” and what might be called groanings in the Spirit. Sister Hill didn’t pray alone; it was a communal prayer as she humbly yet boldly called on the Lord to strengthen, succor, soothe, and fill my brother with the Spirit of the living God.
I know the Lord hears our prayers when we pray alone. We don’t have to join in group prayer to intercede with fervency. Nor is the power of prayer dependent on emotional outbursts, the raising of hands, or the strength of the intercessor. I am thankful for this because I have often prayed when I no longer had the strength or will to pray. My prayers sometimes have no words, and at times, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief” is all I can say. But that is enough, for the will to pray is itself a form of prayer, expressed in groanings from deep within the soul, when all I can do is tread water because nothing seems to make sense. Then, my prayer is simply the open hand of a beggar with no voice to ask a king for a scrap of bread.
Yes, God is gracious and hears us in our need as we humbly approach Him, whether in moments of silence or times of exaltation. Different situations call for different forms of prayer. The Cistercian monk, Michael Casey said, “There is variation in our prayer because we look toward God from different vantage points. Our situation changes; we develop and are subjected to a range of external factors. Our situation can also change because we deliberately choose to seek further into the mystery of God.”
Seeking further into the mystery of God, pressing deeper into His presence, remaining still beneath His hand is a mystical venture we can receive only one moment at a time.
Though she never meant for her words to be for anyone but the Lord, Sister Halls’s prayer, joined by the intercessional chorus of the class, ministered to others. Later that night, thanks to my cell phone, Lori listened to the class praying and, in her spirit, joined them. She likes to replay it. And I sent it to Joy, Mark’s wife, so she could let Mark hear it. “Awesome,” they said.
The subject, by the way, I am teaching this semester is Studies in Old Testament Prophets. Sometimes, the lessons jump off the textbook’s page or from my lecture’s PowerPonts. Still, there are occasions, rare but oh-so-beautiful, when the teacher learns from students a little more about seeking further into the mystery of God, lessons handed down from the prophets of old in moments we only later deem sacred.
Beautiful! God bless!