Last night I drove out to lead worship for the last night of our church’s youth weekend called Isolation. Friday night’s worship session was about worship. How to worship…what it means to worship, ect. It was an incredible time of connecting with God. You can read about it here.

This night’s emphasis was prayer. How do you pray? Why do you pray? Who and what do you pray for?

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon. Layne, my 7 year old daughter, was on me about taking her with me to this last night of the retreat. I was hesitant to take her because I wanted to be careful about distracting these students by bringing my 7 yr old with me. Not to mention, selfishly, I was looking forward to a time of resting, reading and a little song writing. I’ve been really busy lately and that sounded glorious…

She won out…. for the same reason, I’ve been really busy and I needed to spend some time with her…. and… how do you say NO to this face?

And….. because….. God knows what He is doing…..

So I set out on the road with my new ‘roadie’

We of course had to keep the ‘roadie’ happy with road snacks!

yep, that just happened! Anyway….

So we got there. I lead for the students and it was really good. God was moving. Then Bryan got up and talked about prayer. The importance of connecting daily with our Father and the power behind praying for people. Powerful stuff. It was cool to see the idea prayer going past simply praying for their needs… it was beginning to move past them…. to others.

After the talk, Bryan had the students leave the room we where in and go to this little intimate prayer chapel. There they found paper and a pen. They were challenged to choose people, specific people, that they would pray for. The room was quiet and heavy. They were being stretched to move this idea of praying outside of themselves to direct application. It was working.

I noticed my daughter walking up to the table with the paper and pens. I figured she was just getting something to draw on. Which was a great way to keep her occupied.

Then she asked me to write down someone’s name and I did. Then another and I did. Then another and another. You get the idea….. Now, this is not entirely out of the norm for her. She likes to write notes and so on. Then she asked  for the pen and how to spell this phrase…. ‘pray for these people each night’. I told her and she wrote it down.

The next phase of the night took the students outside to a big campfire where they were asked to sit silently and actually pray for those names they wrote down. More application and it was working.

Layne and I sat near the fire because she was cold. I was just sitting there quietly taking in the smell of the fire, the movement of God and praying that these students would really try to pray for their friends and family.

I felt a nudge and Layne asked how to read one of the names I wrote for her. I told her and she turned back around toward the fire with her paper in front of her.

I started watching her and noticed that she would read a name, then she would close her eyes, move her lips slightly for about 30 seconds and then read another.

Then she handed me the paper and asked, ‘Daddy, would you pray for me? I got to my name and I don’t want to pray for myself. I just want to pray for the other people. When you’re done give me my list back.’ So, in an attempt to not cry like a school girl I began praying. Thanking Jesus that I am so blessed to have a beautiful little girl that at times, gets God so much more than I do.

I said I was done and she smiled…. took her list back….. and finished praying for those on her list.

My question for us is… Who are we praying for? Are we praying for people daily because we love them enough to pray blessings over them? I know I’m not. But, I’m going to start….right along with my 7 yr old.

So, Goldie, Maggie, Crew, Raimie, Jessica, Levi, Drew, Cody (our dead dog), Grandpa, Dee Dee, Nana, Poppie, Finn, Jude, Daddy, Mommy, Rolley (our cat), Israel, Brittany, Bryan, Maddison, Layne (she had me pray for her), Elle, Emma, Evyn, Brooke, Collin and Cameron….. you were prayed for last night for over 30 min. It probably won’t be the last time. You are loved by Layne.

I’ll be starting my list today…. what about you?