This coming Monday, Sept. 29, is to mark for me another completed circuit around the sun! This time, a noteworthy milestone – since my birth year is 1945. And, it happens that, to my great pleasure, I will be in Okmulgee, the city of my childhood. How cool will it be – strolling her streets on my 18th, accompanying an assembly of fellow Jesus-followers. Praying with them over this very special community. (If you’re so inclined, come join the fun!)
Prayer … Fun? Just to be clear, interceding (verbally appealing to the Lord in heartfelt care of others) is not meant to be entirely summed up in the word fun. However. If praying, when examined across the pages of the Bible demonstrates anything, it is this. Joy marks the lives of God’s apprentices including within the arena of prayer.
Whenever petitioning God about things on our hearts, we may “groan” at times over the state of our world, over our home life and over the lives of others in their needs. This is part of authentic praying and is often modeled for us in Scripture. The Spirit of our Lord calls us to it. Bob Pearce, founder of World Vision Intl., captures the sentiment as well as anyone, “Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.”
Still, where the practice of prayer can, and often does, include the groaning of lament – the passionate expression of grief or sorrow* – such heaviness of expression does not at all denote a comprehensive definition to prayer. Not by any means.
The word of the Lord is generously peppered with the sounds of his children, his apprenticing followers, freely voicing their fun-filled – call them joyous or celebratory – expressions to the Lord. We are even coaxed to jump into the fun fray, “Rejoice in the Lord always,” Paul exhorts, and adds, as if to ensure that we catch the Father’s eager longing … “again I will say, ‘rejoice!”** An important mention is called for concerning our meetings-up with Christ. Whether in prayer or in service, whether through lament or celebration, the believer is never called to merely “attempt” such endeavors. Teeth-gritting determination, fist-clinched trying – such approaches are foreign to the way of partnering in anything at all with the Lord Jesus. Inventor and designer of the easy yoke.
*Oxford Dictionary **Philippians 4:4 -©2025 Jerry Lout
