By Sarah Jackson

Ottawa has a growing undercurrent of prayer. What is especially glorifying to God is that people from diverse streams are praying together.

As the prayer lead for a ministry that is encouraging teamwork between denominations, I get to be around a lot of praying. It gives me a unique vantage point to the prayer atmosphere in Ottawa.

The prayer cultures are broad—flamboyant to business-like, spontaneous to liturgical. Personality, experience, giftings, and circumstances make each person’s prayers unique. Yet, the challenge with united prayer is that eventually we are confronted with this question: What do I do when I’m uncomfortable with the way someone is praying?

I recently heard a preacher share a story that beautifully responds to this challenge.

What do I do when I’m uncomfortable with the way someone is praying?

His young son was enthusiastically gathering wild flowers to give his mother. He bounced up to his mom and thrust the bouquet into her hands. She received the child’s collection like a treasure. Although some of the flowers were upside down, some had roots still attached, and some were weeds, the disarray didn’t put her off in the slightest. She took the bouquet, discarded the parts that didn’t belong, and arranged it in a lovely vase. Then she placed them on the dining room table where they fulfilled their purpose: bringing honour to mom and beauty to the room.

The preacher explained that this is what God does with our prayers. Some are in disarray, others are ragged weeds, and some have roots trailing off the stem. But like a loving mom knows the heart behind her son’s gift, the Lord receives our imperfectly offered prayers and makes good come of them. It is no trouble for Him to do so.

God responds to our prayers because within the bouquet is something eternal that He can maximise.

I share this illustration with two applications: Individually, we can have confidence to offer our prayers to God. Our prayers can seem inadequate in a number of ways and at any stage of discipleship. Our prayers suffer from lack of faith, not measuring up to our ideals of persistence, impure motives, lack of knowledge of the appropriate scriptures, daydreaming, and the list goes on. God responds to our prayers because within the bouquet is something eternal that He can maximise.

The second application relates to the united prayer life of the citywide Church.

When we look at that mom receiving the bouquet and we remember how the Lord has to sort through all we think in our heart and say with our lips, we realize that our own bouquet is not exactly a Martha Stewart offering.

Together, we bring God a bouquet

The Romans 12:3 principle, “Do not think of yourselves more highly than you ought,” is a great help in a corporate prayer setting with multiple prayer cultures converging. Together, we bring God a bouquet and let Him sort the prayers to make them right side up, snip off the lagging roots, and leave out the weeds.

As united prayer increases in Ottawa across denominational, cultural, and generational lines, God will sort the messiness of all our imperfect prayers and answer with grace. He has been using such bouquets from the beginning of time.

Sarah Jackson is the lead for Pray Ottawa, which encourages teamwork between denominations. She works hard to increase the corporate and united prayer levels offered in Ottawa.