Ryan on Prayer, Football and Patience

Periodically I will have guest writers.  So without further adieu let me introduce my friend Ryan McAnnally-Linz.  He is currently a first year Ph.D student at Yale Divinity School.  Our parents went to the same church and I’ve known him since I was three and he was two and a half—we pretty much did everything together growing up.  Over the last seven years Ryan has slugged through three drafts of War For My Soul and his editorial comments have both helped to make that work what it is and also shaped me greatly as a writer.  So here is Ryan on, “Prayer, Football, and Patience”:

I have always had rather high hopes for myself. A less flattering way of putting that would be to say that I’m ambitious—very ambitious. I like to be good at things. I love to excel at them. But more than that, I love to excel at them naturally, and I hate it when I don’t. I quit snowboarding after one day in high school because I couldn’t stand to be stuck on the bunny slopes while my friends where off landing 360s. Now, this whole desire to be naturally great at things isn’t too big a deal when the thing in question is snowboarding, it’s a bit of a problem when the thing is prayer. 

The other night, I was at a homegroup that I lead. The idea of the group is to share our life stories with one another, to reflect on them, and to pray about the questions or tensions or problems that they include. Each week, one person shares his or her story, we ask questions, and we pray.

So the other night, after a friend of mine who is a new mother, beautifully and honestly shared her story, the rest of us gathered around to pray for her. I was silent as other people prayed powerful words. My mind was blank as other people offered words and images they thought God might have given them. (One of the ways we pray in this group is in faith that God doesn’t just listen, but still speaks to people.) After a while, I got frustrated. Why didn’t I have any words?

I did a bit of internal grumbling about my lack of inspiration, and then I got distracted and just sat in silence thinking about something irrelevant (probably football – I have a tendency to think about football in October). Then, surprisingly, my mind got peaceful, and I got the sense that I did have a word from God to pray. But it wasn’t the sort of word I had expected. What I sensed was the words: “Be patient.”

I like to think I should be naturally great at things. And I often think I should be able to ‘fix’ those things I’m not good at in no time at all. But the other night I was reminded of the importance of patience. Psalm 27, which Jonathan has been reflecting on, reminds me that it’s ok to “wait for the Lord.” And there’s a verse in Philippians that compliments it well. It says, in part, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion” (Philippians 1:6).

I found it comforting to be assured that in the end, it’s God who’s working in me in all those places that aren’t naturally great. God is shaping me to be the kind of person God intended. And often times, from my end of things, what’s needed is to be patient—to “wait for the Lord.”