Recently, on a long plane flight to Africa with Heralds of hope, I was working through a book I had read years ago and didn’t remember much of the details anymore. It is called Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, and is the story of how the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York City came to be. I say working through a book, because I find it much easier to start books than finish them. I am still partway through the book but if I could sum up in two words what I believe the Brooklyn Tabernacle was built on, it would be prayer and praise.
Jim Cymbala, the founding pastor, was going through some very difficult times with the start of the church. In fact, it was so bad sometimes he didn’t even want to show up for a service. God met him in this time and gave him some promises that if they lead their people to pray, God would take care of their needs and bless them. He said to the church, “From this day on, the prayer meeting will be the barometer of our church. What happens on Tuesday night will be the gauge by which we will judge success or failure because that will be the measure by which God blesses us” I am not saying I endorse everything that the book says, but I do think that he has some good food for thought. Is prayer a key part of my life? I am preaching to myself here because it is a challenge for me to make time to pray with the business of life. Within the Brooklyn Tabernacle, as they started to pray, God started to do some beautiful things in their church and in those around them.
I titled the article “The Beauty of Prayer,” because when we come before God, broken and dependent, and then we pray, it is beautiful because God is going to do something in us and through us. It’s beautiful because we cease from relying on ourselves. And it is beautiful because we have Hope in the one who cares for us.
Jesus said something important about prayer in Mark 11:12-22: Now the next day, when they had come out from Bethany, He was hungry. And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find something on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. In response Jesus said to it, “Let no one eat fruit from you ever again.” And His disciples heard it. So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. Then He taught, saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ”And the scribes and chief priests heard it and sought how they might destroy Him; for they feared Him, because all the people were astonished at His teaching. When evening had come, He went out of the city. Now in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter, remembering, said to Him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree which You cursed has withered away.” So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.
Now, I do realize we need to check these verses with other verses on prayer, as this does not mean if I pray for anything I automatically get it. God’s sovereign will comes into play, and I won’t pretend to understand how that works with our prayers, but I do want to point out that He wants us to ask with faith in accordance to His will. He is waiting for you and for me to depend fully on Him in prayer and then to expectantly watch as he answers in His own beautiful way.
-Austin Musser