The other day I was thinking about what would need to be done to take things to the next level here on campus in Madison. Things are going extremely well so far this year: there are a ton of involved freshmen, especially men, many freshmen have even applied to summer projects, new movements in other locations are being started, overall numbers are up, many seniors are planning on going overseas next year, and lives are truly being changed.
But in order to continue to see growth and more importantly, to see more and more lives being changed and more and more people living to glorify God, what would need to happen?
My initial thought was…dorms. We need to start a culture of people living in the dorms for more than just one year.
But almost as soon as that thought came to my mind, it was like God slapped me upside the head and reminded me that maybe creating a culture of prayer was more important.
It’s totally like me to take things into my own hands and think that it will make a difference.
Instead we need to rely completely on the Lord for anything and everything that will happen or change on this campus. After all, it’s Him that has to move. Like Moses who refused to keep moving if the Lord wasn’t with his people, our efforts are in vain if the Lord is not working through us.
But I think I have the tendency to turn even prayer into something that’s performance-based.
If I pray for five hours this week or pray for the right things, God will move and cool things will happen. If I don’t pray, God will punish me by not doing the things that He could be doing on campus.
I think we’ve all probably had these thoughts if we’re honest…
So what makes time spent in prayer more important than the same amount of time spent doing evangelism or plotting out the next big outreach?
If we see prayer simply as a quota that has to be reached in order to see God move…probably nothing.
In Luke 1, an angel comes to Mary and tells her not to worry because she has “found favor with God.” The angel continues on to tell her that she will soon have a baby, the Son of the Most High. Mary questions how this is possible since she is still a virgin.
The angel’s answer is profound:
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”
The power of the Most High will overshadow you…
It didn’t really matter how good Mary was, or how skilled she was. In the end, even though she had found favor with the Lord, she had to be OVERSHADOWED to allow for what God wanted to do in her life.
The Greek word used for “overshadow” is episkiazo, and is used in Matthew, Mark and Luke in describing the Transfiguration.
“While he was speaking a cloud appeared and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.”
Let us not forget that in the OT, such clouds many times indicated the presence of God as the Israelites would move from one place to another.
Mary, Peter, John, and James were all overshadowed by the presence of God…that is, who THEY were became minimized and the presence of God was allowed to be maximized in them.
After being overshadowed, Mary gave birth to our Savior, Jesus Christ.
After being overshadowed, Peter, John and James went on to almost single-handedly spread the Gospel and raise up the Church.
No matter how talented we think we are, or how much favor God has found in us, we ultimately have to get out of the way and allow Him to overshadow us if we want to allow Him to do incredible things here on campus.
And maybe that starts with prayer. I won’t pretend to know if it matters whether we pray for five minutes or five hours, or if it even matters what we pray for, because I think even more than that, it’s simply giving God the permission to overshadow us in everything that we do.
“If your Presence does not overshadow us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you overshadow us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?” (Exodus 33:15-16)
