Beware the Power of Prayer
CROSS PURPOSES # 85
30 May 2007
Hi Guys
Another Cross Purposes from someone else’s experience and knowledge. This one’s by Tony Perdriau and is challenging because it invites us to be vulnerable to the different ways God heals.
A couple of years ago I attended a school at Ellel, Gilbulla near Campbelltown, which dealt with all sorts of topics, one of which was anger. Towards the end of that particular teaching session the students were given the opportunity to ask God to bring to mind anything that was causing them deep seated anger.
At the end of that prayer all the class members enthusiastically went of to the various activities on offer to deal with their anger – except me. I sat there for a few minutes thinking I had no anger in me at all, I was the calmest guy I knew.
As the conference hall was needed for some of the activities, I had to move so I decided to dump my books in my room and go for a long walk.
This turned out to be the shortest “long walk” I have ever taken. I had taken maybe a dozen steps outside the conference hall when a loving Father God lifted the lid on a whole lot of suppressed anger that I had no idea was there. All of a sudden the calm (read control) was no longer there and I was furious.
I had known about a particular incident in my life for some years and had joked about it, albeit somewhat uncomfortably. It was in its own way reasonably trivial. If the words and actions had been addressed to an adult or even a teenager they would have been laughed off. But to a three year old, who had not developed the same ability to reason the impact was devastating and I realised it had coloured my whole life (hence the need to be calm and not make waves).
What followed was one of the most liberating experiences of my life.
Among the anger activities on offer to the class were a couple of barrels which were to be hit with something. Being a guy I needed to do something physical as a release. I turned up at the first barrel with steam blowing out of both ears. The person in charge took one look at me, looked at the plastic pipe he had in his hand and told me to see the next guy over as he had an axe handle.
It sounds ridiculous, a grown man trying to demolish a barrel with an axe handle but boy it felt good – not at the time necessarily, because all this anger was exploding out of me, I could let it go at last.
Even through the red haze of all this anger I was conscious that it was directed at the incident itself, not at the person involved. The term “controlled explosion” comes to mind and the whole episode was under control. Fortunately it was Jesus Christ’s control and not mine, after all, my method of control was to bury it, while Father God knew it had to come out.
Looking back on that childhood incident now there is a sense of sadness that it ever happened. I no longer joke about it, however uncomfortably, and the sense of pain and loss covered by that “joking” has been taken away. I just thank God that He took me at my word and answered my prayer in such a way that the power of the incident was broken while the personal relationship involved was strengthened.
So beware of the power of prayer, you may get what you ask for and you may feel that you have been put through the wringer. But one thing’s for sure, as Father God chooses to answer it you will be all the better for it.
Tony Perdriau
30 May 2007
Hi Guys
Another Cross Purposes from someone else’s experience and knowledge. This one’s by Tony Perdriau and is challenging because it invites us to be vulnerable to the different ways God heals.
A couple of years ago I attended a school at Ellel, Gilbulla near Campbelltown, which dealt with all sorts of topics, one of which was anger. Towards the end of that particular teaching session the students were given the opportunity to ask God to bring to mind anything that was causing them deep seated anger.
At the end of that prayer all the class members enthusiastically went of to the various activities on offer to deal with their anger – except me. I sat there for a few minutes thinking I had no anger in me at all, I was the calmest guy I knew.
As the conference hall was needed for some of the activities, I had to move so I decided to dump my books in my room and go for a long walk.
This turned out to be the shortest “long walk” I have ever taken. I had taken maybe a dozen steps outside the conference hall when a loving Father God lifted the lid on a whole lot of suppressed anger that I had no idea was there. All of a sudden the calm (read control) was no longer there and I was furious.
I had known about a particular incident in my life for some years and had joked about it, albeit somewhat uncomfortably. It was in its own way reasonably trivial. If the words and actions had been addressed to an adult or even a teenager they would have been laughed off. But to a three year old, who had not developed the same ability to reason the impact was devastating and I realised it had coloured my whole life (hence the need to be calm and not make waves).
What followed was one of the most liberating experiences of my life.
Among the anger activities on offer to the class were a couple of barrels which were to be hit with something. Being a guy I needed to do something physical as a release. I turned up at the first barrel with steam blowing out of both ears. The person in charge took one look at me, looked at the plastic pipe he had in his hand and told me to see the next guy over as he had an axe handle.
It sounds ridiculous, a grown man trying to demolish a barrel with an axe handle but boy it felt good – not at the time necessarily, because all this anger was exploding out of me, I could let it go at last.
Even through the red haze of all this anger I was conscious that it was directed at the incident itself, not at the person involved. The term “controlled explosion” comes to mind and the whole episode was under control. Fortunately it was Jesus Christ’s control and not mine, after all, my method of control was to bury it, while Father God knew it had to come out.
Looking back on that childhood incident now there is a sense of sadness that it ever happened. I no longer joke about it, however uncomfortably, and the sense of pain and loss covered by that “joking” has been taken away. I just thank God that He took me at my word and answered my prayer in such a way that the power of the incident was broken while the personal relationship involved was strengthened.
So beware of the power of prayer, you may get what you ask for and you may feel that you have been put through the wringer. But one thing’s for sure, as Father God chooses to answer it you will be all the better for it.
Tony Perdriau
posted by PastorFredVeerhuis at 2:04 PM
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