Are You Actually Showing Up for Them | 1 Samuel 12

- Right. - Sorry, those are my hot takes as we were thinking about it. I'm like, actually pray for them. - Actually do it. - Don't say you're gonna do it. Just like-- - Send the text. Call the person. - Yeah, that's right. - Or pray right there when someone asks. - So literally, like, stop saying praying for you. No, you're not. - I've heard of somebody say before, like when Christians say I'm praying for you, that was the prayer. - Right. - Oh my gosh, that's so horrible and true. - Yeah. - Ah, yeah. (upbeat music) - This is the Crossroads Daily. No experts, no perfect people. Just honest conversations about what happens when the Bible shows up in real life. (upbeat music) - Welcome to Crossroads Daily. My name is Caleb. - I'm Alex. - Amiko. - I'm Kirsten. - And we're still in First Samuel, the prize. And we're in First Samuel, chapter 12 today.

The prophet Samuel, who the book is named after, is kind of given his farewell speech to the nation of Israel. That kind of picture him is like, Gandalf or like a Dumbledore or something. You know, like old wise guy with a long beard. I don't know if it's true or not, but that's what's in my head. - I like that. - Probably not a visual. - Probably not a funny hat. And he kind of gives him like a quick history of the nation. We went to Egypt, God rescued us, we came back here. You guys kind of sucked 'cause you wanted a king, even though God said you shouldn't have one, but he was kind to you and he gave you one. And he says something really, really interesting at the very end, verse 23. He says, "As for me, I vow that I will not sin "against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you." So even though he's kind of formally stepping out of the position as like main prophet guy, he's like, "I'm not done, I'm gonna keep praying for you." That to me just shows the value of what prayer is. So my first question is kind of high level, okay? Prayer, easier, hard for you, why or why not? And I'll be the first to say hard for me. Prayer is hard for me. It's a discipline that I've learned to do, but just I'm a very strong introvert.

So just extroverting even to God is kind of hard. Just talking without feeling like there's any purpose is kind of hard to me. I can run down a list of like, I would like this to happen, but I know God wants a relationship, which is more like, which is less like, here's what I want to happen and more like, here's how my day is going. I talked previously about speed, like going too fast. I got to slow down enough to feel and see and recognize what's going on around me so that I can talk to God about. So prayer can be hard for me. And I fall asleep a lot. I'm sleepy. Yeah, do you pray before you go to bed? Yeah. In the morning, before I go to bed, yeah. Sure. I think I go through different times in my life where prayer is really hard or prayer is, seems easier, I should say seems easier. And which is kind of crazy for me because I feel like a huge part of how I experience God from a really early age has a lot to do with prayer. I think I experienced the power of prayer, especially prayer in community, really early on. My youngest brother was diagnosed like maybe a year old with a pretty rare condition

called 22 Q deletion. He is missing his 22nd chromosome. And that just caused so many issues for him, especially when he was younger. He had something crazy, like 15 surgeries before he was like three years old or something. Like I was really, really difficult season for your family. And he is going to be so embarrassed that I'm telling this to what I'm going to anyways. Sorry, Tate, if you are listening or watching, but he had a lot of stomach issues when he was younger and he could not poop on his own. And so we thankfully had a really strong community at the time of prayerful friends and family. And my mom sent out a blast to people, I don't think we had texting at the time, she was like, oh people pray for poop, pray for poop. And my mom says still to this day, she has people at, they're still at the same church and some of those people who are in that community say, I remember when we prayed for Tate to poop. And guess what people, Tate poops. - Let's go. - Yeah. - Let's go. - We saw a miracle and it's like funny 'cause it's poop, I guess. But it was a really serious thing. And doctors said he may not be able to do this on his own for the rest of his life.

- Oh my gosh. - And I think there's something really powerful when we're talking about prayer and in prayer and prayer can actually change things. But also when we're praying for things specifically when I think about times in my life where prayer is, I think it's because I'm praying for surface level broad things or maybe doing it because I'm supposed to. Instead of remembering that we can pray for things to change them. We can pray for things that the power of prayer is we wanna see heaven and the kingdom here on earth. That's what it says in the Bible. And so when we don't see that, we can actually pray for it and specifically, and God hears that. I feel so convicted after hearing that. I wouldn't say praying itself is hard for me, but it's like I've seen or experienced or heard stories like that. And I still just lack the discipline to always lean into that. And I can just go a while and I haven't actually set apart that time to just commune with God in that way. And then when I hear stuff like that, it's like, yo, what are some of the things that we're saying, like could have been done, right? That even I'm not aware of, right?

That maybe it's almost like I feel like God, you just didn't have access to my heart to place the thing on my heart to pray for. You know what I mean? Because I was just busy with life. I let the busyness of life get in my way. I used to struggle really hard with praying specifically for like healing miracles. And I think I've shared that on this podcast before. Like that was the one thing where like, if I'm standing up to, you know, do prayer and someone's coming to me for prayer, I would be praying, like I hope they're not asking for it. Some sort of health miracle, because yeah. And I struggle with that 'cause I'm like, God, I don't want my lack of faith in that area to thwart what you may want to do in this moment with this individual. So I would be praying for my faith as they're sharing with me whatever their health complication is. I think I've gotten better with that. I think for me it was I hadn't seen that prayer for me anyway to be answered specifically, which always like kind of led for me to just lean more into doubt or not doubt that he could, but just that, or maybe that he would, you know what I mean? But that's where I can see it being hard at. But other than that, I just, I know like it's a discipline that I really need to lock in.

- Yeah. - Yeah, I mean, even though I admit that it's difficult, I know that prayer has an impact. Yeah, and prayer, prayer changes thing. - Yeah. - I'm sure we all have stories. We just heard one praying for poop. Is there another story where you've seen prayer change or something? If not, I got one. - I mean, let's both share. - Okay, go. - Why not? - Oh my gosh. - Oh my gosh. - There's so much scripture that like says that God wants to answer our prayers. He wants to give us the desires of our hearts. He wants to see us knock and he will answer. Like it's just so funny that we say like, we like water it down and we're like, "Oh God, keep us healthy." And it's like, okay, but like if you actually believe the scriptures, let's say that he wants to give us those things, you would pray so differently. And I think like, or just say praying for you. Like, are you praying for them? - Right. - Sorry, those are my hot takes as we were thinking about it. I'm like, actually pray for them.

- Actually do it. - Yeah, don't say you're going to do it. - Just like that. - Just like that. - Then the text, call the person. - Yeah, that's right. - Like, or pray right there when someone asks. - Right there. - Literally. - Like, stop saying praying for you. No, you're not. - I've heard somebody say before, like when Christians say I'm praying for you, that was the prayer. - Right. - Oh my gosh, that's so horrible and true. - Yeah. - That seems like, ah, yeah. Anyways, oh, I have so many stories 'cause God has just like so bolstered my faith in prayer. I've shared about the miraculous healings of my grandpa and my friend's mom, where I actually went to the hospital and prayed on their deathbed. It was like my farewell to these people. And I was the only believer in the room and prayed from God to miraculously heal and give faith to the people in the room. And both people were the next morning on recovery. - Wow.

- Like, went from hearing doctors share. Like, they are gonna be on dialysis the rest of their life if by the 2% chance that they survived this. Like, insane things. But, so miraculous healings, physical, they happen. But one, even less subtle is, I used to be really into journaling. I wanna get more into that practice 'cause I think because of the example I'm gonna give it's so important. And at the beginning of my faith, I would journal for very specific family members to know Jesus and to find healing in him. And it's like, it was just such specific. It was like random cousins and things. It wasn't like, oh, I want my whole family. And I was very specific. Like, and I know Keegan and my cousin watches us and his wife, Ashley. But like, I have journals from years and years and years ago praying for Keegan to know the Lord. And I remember being a part of witnessing his baptism a couple years ago and sending him a picture. I think God like hurt this in his moving in your life and he's one of like very few family that now do that. But like, yeah, he hears us and he sees it and journaling is so fun 'cause you, sometimes it takes years. Sometimes it's not a next morning miracle. Sometimes it's like the long game.

I mean, God has all the time in the world. - Yeah, I admire that so much about you, Kirsten, because I think I get discouraged in prayer sometimes if it's taking too long. And we just heard, that was years of you praying. And like you were saying, we go, we can get discouraged if we haven't seen it. And so our faith around it can be diminished by God not answering something immediately, but that doesn't mean we should stop praying for it. - Right, right, right. - And honestly, I don't even think I kept praying for it. I think like maybe a journal or two and I was like, but it's, I don't think there's a science. Like either if you're continually praying for something morning after morning or it's just one time, it's like God works in wondrous ways that yeah, I'm not gonna pretend to understand. - All right, I got a challenge for you, but I also have a challenge for you guys. We know that we should be praying for people. A lot of us have lists that we tape up on our mirror, people that we're praying for, got a faceless that we do, how we're brushing our teeth. We're praying for those people, right? But I want you to think about who's praying for you? Do you have people that are praying for you? One of the most important things I've ever done is to establish the Mathis Prayer Team.

I got like seven people on a text thread. They're in a group thread and when I need prayer, they have opted in to pray whenever I ask for it. So when things go sideways or when things go good, we're texting that group thread and I know those seven people are gonna lift my family up or lift me up, they're gonna go to God on my behalf for whatever I ask them to do. It's closed, they're confidential. They're trusted people. It's made a huge impact. So go start your prayer lists. Like who do you want to pray for you? It's a humble thing to ask them, but man, it's a powerful thing. So that's my challenge. Go create your prayer list, start that text thread, charge that email chain, whatever, get people praying for you, send them some things to pray. And I think God will start showing up in powerful ways. We'll see you next time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)