No words but prayer

This is how prayer meetings work in our church. Someone, usually a pastor, sometimes a pastor in training, goes to the front and leads a short devotional. Then, soft music is played, and prayer points are flashed onscreen to guide you along in case you run out of things to say.

At first we did it Wednesday mornings, then Tuesday mornings, then evenings, and then in week-long fasts. Now CCF does it thirty minutes before Sunday service. An incentive to come early.

I've attended a number of these and it felt to me a little silly that I would read what's on screen to God as if He were illiterate.

I did something different today, arriving twenty minutes before the three PM service. This was brought upon by an urgent need. I even gave God a little preamble while I was on the escalator: "I'm here to talk to You, something I don't do often. Prepare Your ear for a pent-up mouthful."

But as I sat down, compelled by great unspoken need, as the first prayer point to Worship God was flashed, I was overwhelmed and couldn't speak. Too great was my confusion and deep my pain that there were no words for it.

And so wordlessly I sent God love and worship, similar I guess to the way I would send healing thoughts for an ailing loved one. And so on for the next slide with prayer for the nation, for the church, for family... No words, but prayer.

The slide showed a prayer to request for conviction for unconfessed sin, and God impressed upon my heart how self-sufficient I am and don't depend on Him at all. The only time I spoke: with my mouth I confessed my sins. The last slide was a prayer for personal concerns, but by then I already knew that God knows my needs before I ask, and I can just continue to sit there and be with Him. At that point I just handed Him my heart, the heart He created, now black and bruised and calcified because of my rebellion, and He began to gently massage and soothe it.