“Bring your causes before the Lord! Tell Him all about the things that you’re worried about, the bills you can’t pay, the neighbor you’re fighting with, or the children who just won’t listen.”

The lights dimmed as the minister continued to encourage everyone in the sanctuary to pray to Jesus. People crept out from the crowd and made their way to the stage. Some stopped at the stairs where they knelt down and began to unload their issues. Others stealthily made their way past the man with the microphone to instruments. They began to play softly, which totally brought the Jesus-ambiance to a whole new level.

I was caught up in telling God about this person who pissed me off, the situations that I figured could only be resolved with giant, uncontrollable fires and placing a few requests here and there when I thought I heard the guy next to me say “marijuana”. Normally, I try not to pay attention to anything I hear another human say in these delicate moments, but I knew this person well. I could never picture him smoking weed. Maybe he was praying for another friend who was struggling with substance abuse. Perhaps he was praying for the capital of Botswana and I just thought I heard marijuana.

After detecting that word, Jesus had to fight for my attention. I was trying not to listen to the person next to me, but that was a little like trying not to blink. As time went on, the music became more dramatic, another man with a microphone began to sing and I could hear less and less of what he was praying. It was for the best, because frankly, I didn’t want to listen. I should have gone somewhere else to pray, but I’m not one of those high-maintenance humans who needs to be in the right space for something like this. Or am I?

Morning devotions had to be quiet when the roommates weren’t early risers. I’d wake up, turn on some quiet Jesus-music, then talk to God. Sometimes about money, family, church people, idiots and other situations that needed to be resolved in a fiery explosion or two. I remember one morning praying, talking, laughing, pointing and wanting to yell while praying but hearing footsteps. I listened as they went from the neighboring bedroom to the bathroom, then back down the hall but they stopped right in front of my door. The roommate didn’t go back to bed and there was nothing nearby to do, so he must have been intentionally loitering outside my bedroom door. All I could think was, “Is he eavesdropping on my conversation with the Lord?”

Outrage.

I felt as though my privacy had been violated and death was the only suitable punitive action for the encroachment into my personal life. From then on, I prayed with louder music, or just went for a drive to talk with Jesus. Doing that proved to be a little dangerous though, because I ran too many stop signs after getting caught up in the moment or deciding that Jesus needed a lecture about something.

After a lot of thinking about it, I realized that I don’t really have anything to hide anyway, so whether or not someone hears what I say when praying at church or home, I need to just get over myself and do it. Our messy lives all overlap in such a way that many of us know the failures and successes, dreams and fears of those around us, so why would we try to hide anything?

 

Then again, intentionally listening to someone else pray

is kind of like looking in your neighbor’s window all peeping tom style.

Only creepers do that.