Disappointment with God

I had an amazing week away in the beauty of Sumas, WA. There was no internet connection to be found, I don't even think the retreat centre has a website, nor do they use email- but it was incredibly beautiful and great to just take some focused time out with God.

We learned and practiced Lectio Divina, breath prayers, worked through the low and high points of our lives... did communion every night. There were nine of us there, which was a perfect size group. We met a few times a day to learn different ways of praying and debrief our times alone.

While doing Lectio the second day on the parable of the persistent widow I discovered something profound about myself. I had lost a large part of my faith...

Have you ever prayed and prayed and prayed and PRAYED for something and it just never happened? Since I've come to know God I have been praying a specific something for someone... I've gotten friends together to pray for this, fasted, cried and believed that God could do something... At times things looked like they were changing, but never actually did.

A little less than two years ago (after 8 years of praying, hoping and trying to save this person), I 'surrendered' this to God. I realized there was nothing I could do and took many steps back from trying. My mental-health is wayyy better but what I didn't realize was that I had stopped praying for this person. I stopped believing God could do anything... and I think I've slowly lost my faith in prayer- completely subconsciously.

After a few days of reflecting on this I discovered that I've just been so disappointed with God but haven't wanted to tell God or admit it myself. It's hard when God doesn't answer our prayers- in our time- in our way. My breath prayer became, "El Shaddai (Almighty one), renew my faith". And I believe God is renewing my faith.

I got some one-on-one spiritual direction from my prof and one thing I told him was that I just want that child-like-faith back that I once had... He reminded me that God wants to mature my faith, that this experience is stretching me and making me wrestle with Him... but in the end, my faith will grow and I'll understand him a little more. So true. No one said the faith journey would be easy- but God is FAITHFUL, even when it doesn't make sense and it's hard, He is still faithful.

So I told God I was disappointed, I think he can handle it. And I've slowly starting to pray for this person again... Why does prayer have to hurt so much at times?

"El Shaddai, renew my faith again today"

My prayer life.

Ever feel like you're just too busy to pray? I think most of us feel like that most of the time in our lives...

I think the past couple months have been some of the busiest months of my life. We just launched Unite Canada 2010, Christmas, Urbana, trying to finish the hardest theology class of my masters degree, I got engaged, wedding planning, house hunting, celebrating... Life is great, just sooooo busy! Where do I find time to pray?

Lucky for me, I'm being forced to find time. Next week I'm taking a class called "Reflective Prayer for Transformational Leaders", in Sumas WA as part of my MA in Global Urban Leadership. I have about 1500 pages to read on prayer, which I just started, and part of my 'class time' is a three day silent retreat- Lord knows I need this!

So I'll be using this blog to reflect on my readings and journal through this class for the next few weeks- Please join me on this journey!

Check out Unite Canada 24-7-365-2010

The Unite Canada website is up and running- Check it out!!

www.unitecanada2010.com

Unite Canada 24-7-365-2010

Canada has been given some great opportunities for 2010, such as hosting the winter Olympics in Vancouver, BC in February and the G8 Summit in Huntsville, ON in June. During such a strategic time and after ten years of 24-7 Prayer activity in our nation, we think it’s time to act together.

Our hope and dream is to unite Canada in prayer right across the nation, including all generations, denominations, cultures, cities and ministries. Different denominations have completed a year of prayer for their nation (the Salvation Army have in prayed non-stop in many nations) and Canadian cities have united in prayer (7 churches in Regina for 40 days, 32 churches in Victoria for 52 days of non-stop prayer)... But we want to go beyond and unite ministries in every city to PRAY like never before, 24-7-365!

If you’re in Canada and would like to know more about how you can get involved in this unbroken chain of prayer please email me. I am excited to help join together one of the largest prayer chains that will have ever spanned our nation.

I'm back!

I guess when life isn't exciting or easy, blogging is hard... And once you stop, it's hard to start again.

I'M STARTING AGAIN! Not sure where, but I'll just write...

My sister, Kayla and I moved to NDG, just west of the core downtown of Montreal, in early September. We've had our moments of transition but I'd say that overall it has been great.

This is part of Kayla's blog:

"I knew when I came here it would be tough, and there would be moments when I would fall flat on my face... but I didn't expect it all at once and so close to the beginning... In every way possible I feel like I am loosing the Kayla I know and love. I've lost my language, sleep, personality, culture, environment, friends, and most of all the God I know and love. This is a major loss in my life, which I believe I need to grieve and morn, yet, I need to recognize that in the process there is a strange beauty to this situation. It hurts so much to loose something you love but I also KNOW that God has a lot to say about "she who looses her life will find it". I find my flesh crying out for familiar and longing to walk towards what I know and understand, but at the same time I know God is removing things from my life only so He can put something more like him and more beautiful in its place. So for now I just have to wait in that and hope this happens soon."

I love how Kayla took the risk to move here. Her heart has been to just pray and cook for people- she's so hospitable, I love it! But it has also been really hard and stretching for her... I love that even through the hardest of days, she still feels sure that moving to Montreal was the right decision- I think that's God.

kayla works at the Second Cup below our apartment building. A couple days ago I went in with her to visit a friend and one of the regulars called her over. He's from England and I guess in a conversation she mentioned that she loved Marmite but has had a hard time finding it in Canada. He found and bought her a jar. Although she struggles with finding purpose most days, I think the way she interacts with people in our very tight knit community, serves them coffee, cooks, loves on people and goes on prayer walks and runs through our city is making a difference. A BIG difference!

I think we often like to romanticize community which ends up leaving us pretty discouraged. If you look and listen, I think there are little miracles happening every day. I see them in Kayla's life, even though most days she doesn't even see them herself... "Little is much when God's in it."

Kayla's journey to MONTREAL....

A couple months ago I asked one of my best friends to move to Montreal to join me on this crazzzy journey I find myself in... I was on a road trip with Wendy Andrews (24-7 US team) and we got into a conversation about how I often feel alone and discussed what it would look like to grow a 24-7 team up in Canada. I knew in that moment that I needed to seriously ask Kayla to move to Montreal, for real, to join me on this adventure.

From a small town somewhere between Kansas City and Minneapolis I sent Kayla a serious, God inspired text message asking her to pray about moving to Montreal.... She said YES!!

Kayla just started blogging, in preparation to move, and recently wrote this blog about her journey of prayer to Montreal:

So I've been wondering where to start and really the best solution I have come up with is to share my journey (thus far) on prayer.... since after all that's what I'm going to Montreal to do.

So here's a bit of an overview on my last 10 years...

I can remember as far back as the late 90's, when I started my first ever prayer journal. I've always been a big journaler, but I remember a distinct season where my journal consisted entirely of prayers. I was dependant upon it. Another memory I have would be in 2001, went I to Summit Bible College. It was there that I became a member of my first ever prayer group. There were 6 girls, who got together everyday after supper to pray together. This group was a significant group/marker in my life, as I remember getting together with these girls to share my heart and pray. There were people in the group I wouldn't normally hang around with but we were so close we felt lost when a day would go by that we couldn't meet with each other. Then I remember going to Brazil in 2003. While I was there I remember thinking one day near the beginning of my trip, "I didn't realize no one would speak English here, and I'm so staved to talk with someone" but it was there that I learned that God can become our conscience, and what I mean by that is after a while my thoughts became prayers. I got to a point where I couldn't really separate my thoughts from a prayer. God was my friend, and we just hung out together all day. Two weeks into this trip someone came from Canada I think they almost died of talking overload. I talked for an entire afternoon straight! But it was weird the more I had people to talk to, after a while, I just wanted to find space alone so I could be with God in my thoughts. Then, last summer, while I was in Calgary, I worked a place that was a 45 min walk from my house. The walk seemed long at the beginning, but soon my walks became prayer walks, and soon I got to a place where I was wishing the walks were longer. I would get to work everyday in tears, just so in love with God. Then last September I remember being in a place of brokenness, I remember being at the end of Kayla, and feeling so lost for answers in life. I journalled a lot, but every time I did I found there were more and more question with no answers to those questions. It was there that I declared myself in a "season of prayer", because there was nothing else I could do. God reduced me to this point, and at the time I thought it sucked, but I realise now that He was doing something. At Thanksgiving I met up with my friend Daria (whom you will hear a lot about in this blog so remember that name) and I told her about my "season" and she said she was in that same place. So we decided to pray together on the phone. With honest efforts, we have been doing this since (although when she's on the road its more difficult) little did I know that God was doing all this for a bigger purpose. Daria is one of the girls I prayed with daily at summit, and now for the last year holding each other up in prayer, and now I am moving to Montreal to live with her and start this prayer community. Funny how God works!

God has sewed prayer into my life through certain events and seasons, and he is continuing to do so. Prayer isn't the answer to all of life's problems, but God is! Prayer is the gift we have been given to commune with God, to join his rhythms, and to see his face.

SOAR MONTREAL- 1 week of 24-7 in 4 environments.

It's been an exhausting but great week here in Montreal. Last Wednesday over 200 youth showed up in Montreal to "shine" in our city. They spent the first few days in orientation, learning about the city and getting to know each other. Then Sunday night began a full week of prayer and mission- it has been amazing!

We've been praying 24-7 in 4 different environments since Sunday night. The first time I've ever done something like this but we needed to find a solution to not have access to the main prayer room at night and all the students going out on mission during the day. The schedule is pretty colorful but we're managing to keep the prayer going all day and night!

Saturday afternoon I did two workshops on prayer and in each one we set up a prayer room: one on the guys floor and another on the girls floor for them to take turns praying through the night. Then Sunday, I set up the prayer van which has been at different mission assignments all week. I had no idea how it would work, but 5 days in, it actually seems to be working!

I was just walking over to Second Cup to write this blog and a couple guys stopped me to share their prayer room experience. They said that they've experienced God in an amazing way through these prayer rooms this week- One of the youth even said that he goes up to the all guys-all night prayer room during the day when he needs some quite time away. Many people are asking for more info on how to start a prayer room back home.

The prayer van has also been great. We've printed cards in french and english that say, "How can we pray for you" with space for people to write requests. Most teams have had the opportunity to 'prayer card' in the area they're serving and pray right in the community for all that is going on.

Overall, it's been an amazing week of God doing amazing things through prayer. Love it!