Generous Prayer

On September 13 I walked 22 miles around Geneva Lake. Don't compare this to a marathon. It's more like a day in Tolkien's book The Hobbit. My walk was filled with exploration, dodging puddles (it rained the morning of the walk), stopping at the homes of friends, and sharing part of the trail in deep conversation with a friend. Don't worry the comparison stops there. There are no orcs, goblins or trolls on the Geneva Lake Shore Path (that I saw)!

The main purpose for my walk was to raise funds for Joshua Project, the organization that tracks the status of evangelism globally by tracking people groups. They are going through a major tech transformation and need to raise significant funds for it. I serve on the board and was excited to help out. I'm happy to say that we surpassed our modest fundraising goal. I'm so thankful to all the friends, family and co-workers who gave towards my walk and to help Joshua Project (you can still give here if you want to support the effort). 

As I prepared to do the walk I decided that I should intentionally pray for the 22 largest unreached people groups, since I was walking 22 miles. I had no idea that the 22 largest unreached people groups represent over 1 billion people! I put together a simple prayer guide for each mile and shared it with everyone who supported my walk. 

My walk began after the rains ended and I had to spend significant energy staying out of the mud and the puddles. But once I got into the groove, I began to pray. I had never prayed for that long before . . . on and off for 9 hours. I found myself praying for the obvious, but then as time went by God began to direct my thoughts to areas of prayer for the people represented on this list that were more nuanced and specific. 

Before I knew it, I was having these deep and probing discussions with God about the people in these groups who don't know Him, the workers from these groups that are sharing their faith, the organizations helping to engage the unreached, the donors giving money to help, the governments that rule over the places where these people groups live and the people who live along Geneva Lake and could make such a difference through praying, giving and going. 

This walk taught me the value of generous prayer. Prayer needs to be persistent, intentional, authentic, but it also needs to be generous. I'm learning that giving of my time in prayer makes a real difference. My willingness to spend lavish time in prayer actually leads to very different kinds of communication with God. 

I also learned that to be generous in prayer, I need multiple inputs to help me stay focused. A part of what made my focus possible was that I had a variety of inputs reinforcing each other:

1. The prayer guide helped me know what to pray for.
2. A Prayer Walk Playlist gave my prayers focus.
3. The walking itself provided a rhythm and tempo for prayer.
4. The scenery along the way opened up opportunities for God to bring ideas to mind. 
5. The fact that others were praying with me strengthened my resolve and focused my attention.

What might it look like for you to be generous with your prayers and connection time with God?