Clarity in Prayer...

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

How do I have to pray for this land and its people? During the first 2 days I have been blank, distracted and unable to see the spiritual realm of this city and this nation. I have been praying what is basic, somehow lost, aiming blindly to every direction. We had a time of prayer over the mountain where we were able to see the entire city… but I still could not see the Spiritual. I know for sure that the Spirit guides our prayers but I was longing for a better conscious understanding of how to pray.

It did not happen on the mountaintop, it did not happen at the church gathering; it happen in the simplicity of a tiny hotel room at 5:30 am while my partner was still sleeping. I woke up ‘called’ to pray after the city prayers where over (we are here during Ramadan, a month of fasting where prayers start a around 2 or 3am around the city… and you hear them!)

Seated and kneeled by my bed I receive clarity to pray for this land as I was reminded of the story of Ishmael in the book of Genesis. Ishmael was the son of Abraham and Agar, young slave of Abraham’s wife, Sara. Ishmael was conceived in an attempt to help God fulfill His promise, but he was not the son of the promise and due to bitterness and resentment between his mother Agar and Sara, he was send away by his father Abraham in obedience to God. Blessed and cursed at the same time Ishmael would become the father of many nations, including the one I’m right now.

A son that was loved and also abandoned by his father is a very sad picture. Ishmael was the son that grew up strong but fatherless, in the middle of the resentment of a young mother whose life was also marked. Did he resent his father in a strange mix of love and hate? Did he perform trying to gain his father’s love? Did his heart become hard? Did this experience block his eyes of understanding for God?

As I see Ishmael children in this city and learn how much they are committed to deeds to gain favor with God, as I see their faithfulness in those deeds (faithfulness also reflected in his desire to honor and submit to their authorities)… I see the heart of a child longing for his father love. As I see in this land how big is the concept of “what is fair” and how small is the concept of forgiveness and grace, I see the heart of a child whose place was taken away without any explanation. Sins of our parents bring consequences to our lives… we live the blessings or the curse of our previous generations and somehow we repeat the very same sins we saw in our parents, sins we hate and try to avoid. All of this is the very nature and consequence of sin.

There is just one way out. This way is just found in the person of the One who came to reconcile the world with God, He did it by sacrifice, forgiveness and grace. As I call to the name of Christ who is eternal, loving and powerful to bring reconciliation in the heart of a child named Ishmael and his children… I see also how His very identity has been rejected as the Son of the promise of God and replaced with another son, another person, another prophet; human effort to reach what God promised and only God can deliver. It sounds a lot like the sin of Ishmael parents.