Prayer - Doing vs. Becoming

I returned last night from a quick visit to Denver to see Caleb Jentsch and his family.  You can keep up best with his progress after a very serious head injury at
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/calebjentsch

Very serious head injury hardly describes what is going on, there is so much more.  Mainly, there are answers to prayer and needs for more prayer.  We have seen Caleb's life spared, yet we do not know what kind of recovery he will have.

At a time like this so many of us (me included) want to "do" something.  We feel helpless and we want to help.  What the Jentsch's have stressed over and over is that their need in all of this, especially now, is prayer.  Too often for us prayer does not qualify as something to "do."  We want to take some sort of meaningful, direct, helpful, encouraging, impacting action.  What the Jentsch's are saying and I am learning is that prayer is "doing" something, the most needed and important something that we can "do."  Answers abound, need also abounds.

Prayer is that real and tangible thing we can "do."  But instead of looking at what we can "do" we must look at what God is "doing" and what we are "becoming."  Caleb's healing will be a long, demanding process.  In some ways, God is remaking him.  And in someways God is remaking us.  We are becoming something that we were not before. 

Will we pray?  But most importantly will we grasp the perspective that prayer is "doing" something?  In prayer, God causes us to become people who overcome.  We become people that we were not before all this happened and God "did" it. 

Would you pray for Caleb and his family in ways you may not have done before.  Get with others, initiate prayer or join with others who are praying.  We will become different people and we will become a different church if we will learn to pray and see what God can "do."

For the journey...

Tim