My Prayer Cell Experience

As written about in my last post from Korea, I had asked you to pray for me as I went to prayer mountain. It was a great experience. One of the first things we did was spend about 2 hours walking up the mountain doing the stations of the cross. Different Beeson Pastors including the international leaders lead devotional thought at the different stations. I took pictures of the stations and plan uploading them when I have the capability in a couple days.

I want to tell you about my prayer cell experience. On Monday night, everyone was invited to sign up for a prayer cell for the night. You could stay as short or as long as you like. I must say, this Korea experience was something that attracted me to the Beeson Program years ago. I had heard how formational it was and how so many pastors who go are never the same. This January in Houston, we heard from former Beeson Pastors who had great experiences with God at the prayer mountain. All of this raised my expectations pretty high. Like many, I desire greater experiences with God, deeper experiences. Too much of life seems on the plains and if I'm honest, I want an experience with God more like climbing the mountains than being on the plains. Therefore, I was praying for some profound experience from this night and being on prayer mountain.

I checked into my prayer cell later that night. I took a photo of it and I will upload it later. I must stay that the description of a prayer cell is accurate. They are small and there is not much room. There were about 25 cells to choose from, some were already being used. I chose the biggest one I could find. It had two pillows on the floor. I had brought my blanket from my room because it was cold in there. Nothing like being close to God by sitting on an uncomfortable floor that is cold and feeling like you are in solitary confinement.

I began to pray about all my expectations of the night. Of all that I heard and listed above. After praying through some of those expectations, I felt like God gave me a word for me. It was something like this, "Scott, you don't need to be in a prayer cell in South Korea to have an experience with me. I am all over. Your prayer cell is the entire world. You can go anywhere and be with me and talk with me. Instead of trying to get something out of this experience, just make as much of yourself available to me as you can right now." This was incredibly freeing. It felt good just to be with God without any expectations.

I took my Bible and read through almost all of John. WHen I was in San Jose at the Organic Church Conference, Neil Cole talked about using the seven signs of John as a way to share Christ with people. Most scholars note that John is designed around seven miraculous signs Jesus performs so that people might believe in him (john 20:31). As I read through it as a whole with this lens, it was very clear that Jesus was powerful and performed many miraculous signs yet the people missed them. Even more they asked Jesus to prove himself by performing a sign but missing all that he had already done in their midst. It was so clear that they just didn't get it.

I wonder how many times we just don't get it. We want to see God in a miraculous way yet he shows up in power in so many places we just don't have eyes to see. He does miracles regularly so that we might have faith in him yet we continually ask for more. Help us and me, O God, to see your miraculous signs in our culture, our world, our lives so that we might believe in you and others might have faith in who you are.