Our service was anything but the usual Wednesday night service. We always take time for prayer requests, praise reports and anything else that needs to be mentioned. Sometimes each member will take a portion of our prayer list included in our Sunday bulletin and specifically pray for those items in addition to anything else mentioned. Sometimes we each have things that we have not mentioned, even as an unspoken request. Last night was something rare and special. There were several requests and praises; Pastor mentioned some of the items in the bulletin and especially our country, the military and our missionaries we have scattered all over the world. Some of these missionaries are in dangerous areas of the world; we have several in Mexico and in the Middle East. These missionaries lay their lives on the line every day in the process of doing the Lord's work. We always have time of quiet prayer and then Pastor Tyler will close the prayer time, praying aloud.
When Pastor Tyler returned to the podium and prayed, he thanked God for the reverence in the service and I can't remember his exact words, but used the words "time to be holy" in his prayer. The phrase stuck in my mind and I knew there is a hymn titled "Take Time to be Holy" so I decided to play that for the offering. After the prayer, Pastor Tyler asked if anyone had a song they would like us to sing and I called out "number 329". The words to the song are beautiful and just went with our prayer time like peanut butter and jelly. After we took the offering and I was returning to my seat, Pastor commented that "he was in a fix". I had looked at the clock as I was sitting down and it was a few minutes after 8:00 and we are usually out of church by 8:15. Pastor Tyler said his time was already up and he wasn't going to preach and hold us any longer. Anyone that knows a preacher knows that it is a rare thing for a preacher to not preach, irregardless of how long we might need to stay. But, his reasoning was valid and I'm sure God understood.
He asked if anyone had a testimony to share and several of us spoke. I commented on how there have been several times I have felt the presence of God in our services and that tonight was definitely one of those. It was so tangible I could almost touch it. And.....to use one of my absolute favorite words when it comes to describing the Lord...it was awesome.
When I left church last night, in all honesty, I wasn't feeling any better physically. But, spiritually, I was healed. I had been in one of the greatest prayer services, in my humble opinion, we have ever had in my Church and I was blessed to have been a part of it.
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