An Odd Prayer
I do not think there has ever been a prayer over a chicken nugget dinner like the one I heard today.
Ever so often I am able to spend extended periods of time with just one of our many street kids. We will usually walk a lot while we talk. The setting is the same most times where we circle the two mile Sixteenth Street Mall route. As I think about it now, I will never cease to be amazed at how the hundreds of other people seem to disappear all around us as we walk and talk.
During one such time my friend and I talked at length about how God had created all things, including relationships. I told the story of Adam’s first look at Eve and how he went crazy over the perfection he saw in her. Our conversation might have been quite humorous on the street so I am glad that all the other people disappeared.
Nonetheless, my friend has a very strong desire to have a true soul mate of his own. The lack of fulling this desire has been his excuse to try and fill it with various kinds of substitutes. As he talks about these subsititutes he mentions that he wants to stop smoking cigarettes, and stop smoking marijuana since he knows that his health would be so much better.
However, the truth about his dilemma appears as he talks about his true substitute; the only true and faithful companion he has even known, cocaine. It is this desire he cannot give up until he finds "the one" for him. As we talked he realized how many times he had gone after relationships just hoping to find what he missed, and within them he is always trying to fix everything. Eventually he finds that he cannot even be without them for even one minute, since he fear they will leave and abandon him. The one thing he desires then, he says, is the one thing he always destroys...relationships.
As we talked I spoke about how God also desires relationships and even modeled His relationship with His people as a marriage. We talked about desiring a relationship the way God wants it to be, and compared that to his understanding of what a relationship was. I know our afternoon was one that helped me desire my marriage to be stronger and I hope it helped my friend.
It was after all this walking and talking that he asks if we could get some food and knowing my friend’s favorite is the number nine combo at Mc Donald’s, we went there. As we sat to eat he asks if he could pray. I do not think there has ever been a prayer over a chicken nugget dinner like the one I heard this day.
“Father thank you for today, and for this food you have given us. God, please give me the desire to quit smoking. Please give me the desire to quit marijuana. Please give me the desire to stop using cocaine. God I need you. Please forgive me of my past and present sins. I want people to not see the person I used to be. God please protect my friends Robbie, Matt and Nikki as they are exposed to evil each day, please guard them. God help me find the person you want me to have. In you name, amen.”
I sat there with a smile on my face hoping that all the people around us had reappeared to hear that prayer. Maybe today would be a good day for you to take a friend on a walk. Please be ready for God to go with you and have a few bucks for McDonald’s.
