Praying with Bill Mason

Every week the Asbury staff gets together to share some things going on in the church and pray for the prayer requests that had been submitted the week before. I was sitting by myself towards the front, in my usual place, and I noticed that Bill Mason was also sitting in the front, in his normal place. Our normal friends we sat with were not with us. So, I approached Bill to pray with him.

Now I have heard before that Bill Mason is a man of prayer who rises early to pray every day. He is the one who grew Asbury from a few families to thousands of members. As we got together the leader that morning, a youth staff person, had shared about a ministry in the youth department that was about healing the hurts of life such as divorce, death, abuse, etc. She challenged us to share with our prayer partners a struggle we were going through as well.

I put that out of my mind because I couldn't really think of any struggles I am facing right now. They all seem rather petty. I feel good about my marriage. I feel balanced in my work, recreation, and exercise. I'm spending more time with God. I've decided to stay on as a pastor at the church. Everything is going well right now.

So, I prayed. I prayed for a woman who was going through an abusive situation. I prayed with gusto. I tried to evoke the emotion and the stirring of my faith. Sometimes I feel that if I pray with the right amount of emotion then I "feel" the faith I need. This brings to mind sitting in a Christ's Church small group at Jay and Jodie's house in Joplin. We were talking about faith and Jay shared that we don't have to conjure up faith in order to pray. For some reason this really resonated with me. I've heard a lot of emotional prayers in my day, and it seems that the emotional prayers are really the effective ones. So, sometimes I am sorry to admit I take the lead by conjuring up the faith needed for God to move.

So, I took this approach yet again trying to show Bill Mason my own level of faith.

Then it was Bill's turn. He simply read the prayer request out loud by saying "Lord, so and so asks for ... won't you help them?" Then he said, "the speaker this morning challenged us to share our issues during this time..." I didn't share mine because I was with Bill Mason. I didn't really know what to say and I didn't want to say anything that was superficial. He went on, "Its hard to think of a hard one, but I do ask that you help me and my wife with our weight. Amen."

The simplicity of this man's prayer floored me. I think of Jesus' words about not going on and on for men to hear.

Lord, have mercy on me for my hypocrisy.