Tonight, I finally started something I’ve been meaning to for a couple of years now. I tend to work late, so my building on campus is pretty quiet when I leave, usually just the custodial staff and a few grad students working on their chemical reactions. Tonight, I began prayerwalking my building. I started on the top (5th) floor and walked the entire hallway and dropped to the 4th floor below, praying all along.
What did I pray about?
Whatever came to mind.
As I passed by a colleague’s office or labs, or those of someone else I know, I’d pray for them specifically. I prayed for God’s glory to be revealed through the beauty, order and mystery revealed by the research performed in this building over most of the last 100 years. And so on. The next time I’m here late (and maybe even if it isn’t so late), I’ll start on the 4th floor and drop to the 3rd, so that every floor is overlapped.
I have no idea what to expect, except to expect God to do something, because He promises that prayer moves His hand. Perhaps this is the simplest way to transform our campuses.
As I think about it, it reminds me of a custom among farmers and ranchers to walk their land. Every so often, they go and walk (or drive if it is big enough) all over their property to survey it, to stay close to it and monitor/maintain it. It binds them to the land and they come to know it more and more intimately, able to recognize subtle changes over time and adjust how they manage and use it accordingly.
Whatever our vocation is, do we “walk the land” of our work, whether it is a campus, an office building, a factory, our homes, and so on? Do we bind ourselves to these places, not in a workaholic sense, but in a spiritual sense, able to recognize changes and cycles? Might it not help us to be more effective in both our work and ministry because we know it better? And as long as we are walking that land, why not discuss it with the “landLord?” Perhaps it may do some good. Just maybe.
SDG
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