My Story #72
PRAYING SIMPLE
I was attending Ashland Avenue
Baptist Church in the 1960's. They had a Sunday morning attendance over
900 people; so, it surprised me that they did not have anything for the
young people during the week.
The Southern Baptist Convention had a
program called Young Ambassadors for boys, which usually met on Sunday
night or on a week night. I decided to meet with some of the young boys
on Thursday nights in order to teach them
the Bible and to try to be a witness to them. There were about 12-14
boys in that group.
Once an invited boy came, and he was
Roman Catholic. He kept talking about Mary and how she helps us when we
pray, so I began to speak to the boys about prayer. After a while the
boy made a profession of faith in the Lord.
Then one night I asked him to pray
for us. He immediately bowed his head and began to talk. But he did not
talk in prayer the way in which we were all accustomed. He just began to
talk to God as though God were right there
in the room. I am not sure of all that he said, but I do remember that,
when he was finished praying, he just said, "That is all." His prayer
was finished.
At first, I wanted to teach the boy
more about how to pray, but then, after thinking about it for a while,
my thoughts were prompted to a gracious surrender to his personal way of
talking to God and the end of his prayer.
Perhaps we should all learn to pray
as this boy did. He did not teach me much theology, but I think he had
an impression on the way I pray. God is our friend; let's talk to him as
a friend! What say?
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