Prayer

Praise His name, I'm fixed upon it.

The name of our Lord brings salvation ultimately, but there are many other graces that flow from him, which give him other names. I am thankful. He is our shield. He is our very great reward. He is our great inheritance. He is with us. He is our Blessed Redeemer. Our King, our friend.

The Psalmist said "How can I repay the LORD for all his goodness to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD."

Praise His name, I'm fixed upon it.

I wanted to blog about my thoughts on prayer, but I can sing, tell of God's faithfulness forever and never get tired. I think it is time his redeemed began to sing the songs of redemption. Now is the time to sing with Moses and Miriam: The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation! People who have received grace will always be grateful. The song of the LORD will always be on their lips and on their hearts. Thankfulness overflows for the side of Christ from which blood and water is forever overflowing bountifully into and out of our lives and hearts. Praise the LORD, O let all that is within me adore him.

Let the "amen" sound from His people again;
Gladly forever adore Him!
Praise to the Lord! O let all that is in us adore Him!

Now to prayer.

The biggest privilege given to the redeemed for their walk in holiness is prayer. When the first believers received the good news, they did not receive a copy of the bible, nor any other curriculum or type of devotional. They still had the word of Christ and had teachers. But what was readily available to them regardless of location, intellect, gender, or any classification was prayer. Prayer is a blessing, yes, a privilege. But we do not have that perspective. God is helping me through that myself. We have heard stories of others who call themselves prayer warriors and pray without ceasing for others going through tough situations. We have heard the stories of those who pray for long hours even days and it frightens us. Is that even possible, we say. How did something that is supposed to be joyful and powerful turn to be neglected by the majority, and adopted only by a few? There are always the justifications for why we do not pray as we should. Time is one of them, and the list goes on from there. My purpose is not to explain all the reasons, nor give a limit to how long or often we should pray. I believe that will come to us through thrusting ourselves upon Jesus. From the plenty of defenses we give for not praying, there is one thing at the root of them, which the Lord made me aware of, and made me pursue repentance. My writing is all the result of self reflection.

This is the conclusion I came to:

Prayer is humiliating.

Prayer is humiliating. It is begging for mercy, for help. We live in a society that worships self-sufficiency. We do not often consider asking for help. Asking for assistance is looked down upon. You are supposed to be independent from the time you can walk. You are supposed to let the whole world and your surrounding know that you are able and capable on your own. We do not need the help of anybody. The structure of society is set up for the individual, therefore the individual must by him or herself secure the way to the top. I can go on right. Here in the midst of the roar of society that overwhelms us saying "We are the source of our own strength, We can achieve happiness through whatever means we wish," is God's whisper... "Call to me and I will answer to you."

At first his voice is a joke. I laugh. Not that I need him, but that he would think that I need him, I say to myself. Still he whispers ..." if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face..."

On August 08, 2008 (8/8/8), something happened to me that I have not told a lot of people. I will never forget that day, and remember it vividly. It was any other summer day in Texas. Hot! I was a teenager in the home of my parents, and still my eyes were being opened by the realities of the world. I woke up that day thinking it would be any other normal day. I woke up at 7am, brushed my teeth and the like, and got ready for work. Through a good friend I had gotten a job fixing assembling furniture in new schools around the DFW area, and I had the opportunity to bring my friends to work with me in the surrounding cities. I read my daily bread that morning as usual and said a quick prayer for protection before I left to go pick up my friends for work. What you don't know is that I was driving illegally at this point in life. I did not have the money to go through Driver's Education at school, plus I was months away from turning 18 in order to get my drivers license so I decided to do what-I-gotta-do. I did not have a Driver's License. Not only that, the previous summer, I had worked long hours (10 -14 hour days) at Six Flags Over Texas (as a costume character) to save up for a car, and in a couple of months I had enough money to buy my first car, 2001 Toyota Corolla. I named her Rosetta, for she taught me many languages, and spoke one I couldn't understand. As a teenager, I did not know cars were supposed to have, uhh registration, inspection, or insurance, so I just drove my car without any papers. Even despite warning from family. I had to get to work to get money, I thought. That is important to me, I could drive. I tried to be smart while driving by giving myself some rules: 1, no speeding  2, no texting and driving, 3, pray when you see the po-po. For a while, my rules worked for me. I had driven the entire summer without the bother of any police officer. Things were going well. Then came 08/08/08...

We had arrived at work that day and received our assignments. We would spend the majority of the day assembling chairs in classrooms at our own pace one after the other. Lunch finally came, and we went to Subway. I had been watching commercials about this new sandwich from Subway called The Sweet-Onion-Chicken-Teriyaki Sandwich, and that day, guess what? I got me one, and it was good! It was one of the best lunches I have ever had till now. On the way back to work, I was feeling satisfied, and overjoyed by finally trying this new sandwich. I turned up on my CD player one of my favorite songs at that time, Switchfoot, Meant to Live. It is such an exhilarating song that I kept my foot on the accelerator till it reached 50, then 60, 70, then 80, and then 90. The speed limit was 40. I drove down the highway through the town to the lyrics "We were meant to live for so much  more... have we lost ourselves?" I had certainly not only lost myself, but the law, and one of my own rules. Before I could realize it, I did not have the time to exercise my last rule: "Pray when you see the po-po," and a sheriff headed towards the other direction caught me slowing down at 77 mph, turned around and came to give me a big-fat ticket. I just now finished paying for that ticket a couple of years ago. Whew!!

That is not the end of the story.

According to the law, I was supposed to be in jail that day, and my car confiscated . I had never done anything that bad, I thought. My life was over, my parents were going to send me back to Africa. There were many things that were going on inside of my heart that day in addition to getting the ticket that day. I had lived my life for so long without purpose, and I felt unloved. I was battling with being a believer still sinking in the lusts of my flesh. I felt no help was on the way, I felt no help was possible. That day, I wanted it all to to be over. I wanted my life to be over.

I was sinking in sin.

We had church service that night that I did not even want to go to, but I had to go because I played the drums. Church service was like any other normal service, lot of rejoicing, people dancing and shouting and praising God. I kept looking around at the people and thinking if it was all fake. Had everything I believed in God been a hoax? Had I been tricked into believing in this God who did not exist? Where is he? Why didn't he watch over me? I did not feel him in my situation. Even if I knew I couldn't drive when I couldn't, why didn't he provide me with the chance to do Driver's Education and get my license, and drive legally? Why was I playing the drums for his praise, and did not feel any joy in my life? Where is he? These questions and more ran throughout my mind as I sat playing the drums. I thought, if he did not give me a sign for his existence and why he wanted me alive that night, I would give up on church, and even on life.

Something happened to me that was very powerful that August night. And I would not care what anybody says. It was very real to me. I had not notice that it was God till after it happened when God reminded me of his faithfulness to me.

I sat on the drums playing the rhythm for this popular song: "Shout to The Lord!" I felt someone whispering in my ear, "shout to me." I was reasoning with myself... what? I thought. Again, "shout out to me." By now, I had thought the title of the song is called Shout to the Lord, I would be sinning if I did not shout out to him. I would be singing a lie to him. So I began to shout to the Lord, and singing from my heart. At the moment, all the frustrations of my heart were poured into the shout of praise. And I couldn't say "why" anymore. I was shouting...

Shout to the Lord, all the earth,
Let us sing
Power and majesty, praise to the King;
Mountains bow down and the seas will roar
At the sound of Your name.
I sing for joy at the work of Your hands,
Forever I'll love You, forever I'll stand,
Nothing compares to the promise I have in You.


I sang the mountains bow down... Then I thought in my heart, if the mountains bow down, then why not me. I was overwhelmed at this moment. And was immediately tossed on my knees. My eyes filled with tears in front of the whole congregation. Embarrassment was the last thing I was worried about though. Something was happening to me. I was shouting, tears flowed from my eyes, my nose ran, I was still trying to play the drums but I was overwhelmed. The Lord heard me. The Lord was near me.

Some other things happened after that, but the main thing I discovered that night was God was real, and was not finished with me. Call out to me, he whispered! He urged, I responded, I was humiliated, but I was lifted out of my misery. That day began my close devotion to the Lord. I threw away most of the music I had, anything that was going to hinder my walk with him. I wrote the words of this song "I Will Never Be the Same Again," on a piece of paper and kept it in my wallet. I looked at it throughout the days to remind me of the new life I had in Christ.

I was sinking in grace.

Prayer is certainly humiliating, and it will always be in this side of life. That is one of the paradoxes of the kingdom of God. Descend to ascend. It is still a joy though. God shares his glory with no man so much that the only way they can receive help is humbling themselves. We should proclaim that we are weak. We are powerless! We are poor! We are dead! We are all these things unless he gives us life, riches, power, and strength! Praying will be humiliating as we seek a powerful God to come to our help, from the point of salvation and all the way through our walk in holiness. In our walk in holiness, maybe it is through digging holes in ourselves in humiliating-prayer that we will be filled to be holy. Prayer where we can denounce the lies of the world saying that we are sufficient in and out of selves, and proclaim our Lord is all sufficient!!

It is ancient truth from Genesis to Revelation, that this is how the Lord deals with his people...

And it shall come to pass

That whoever calls on the name of the Lord

Shall be saved.

For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance,

As the Lord has said,

Among the remnant whom the Lord calls.

Joel 2:32

Christ modeled the way for us.

 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond-servant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2

-Kingsley

"God perceives the imperfections within us, and because of his love for us, urges us to grow up, his love is not content to leave us in our weakness.. no soul will ever grow deep in the spiritual life unless God works passively in that soul.." - John of the Cross