DROPPING TO MY KNEES
by Eric Elder
The Ranch
I normally write a message on the weekends to try to encourage you in your faith, but today I need your input. This fall, I’m hoping to start a new series of messages on the topic of prayer and how you can have a more effective prayer life.
I’ve been working on this series for more than five years, but for various reasons I have not yet felt it was ready to share with you. But the past few months, I have found myself dropping to my knees more often than ever, and I feel the time is right to share these messages with you now.
Recently, when I hear about something that’s happening, or someone shares with me what’s going on in his or her life, it often seems like the only appropriate response is to literally get down on my knees and start praying. As a side note, I’m not normally prone to just drop down to my knees. I’ll pray, yes, and I have prayed on my knees before, but what’s new lately is that I feel compelled that there’s nothing better I could do than to physically get down on my knees and pray–whether that means getting out of a chair, turning around, and kneeling down, and putting my head and my hands down on the chair I was sitting on, or putting my head face-down in my pillow in the middle with my knees tucked up under me on my bed, or sometimes even dropping down to my knees as I’m going about my day, wherever I happen to be. In one way, I feel awkward doing this. But in another way, I feel this is often the only thing that seems right to do in the moment. It reminds me of how Abraham Lincoln must have felt when he said:
“I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.”
There are so many things in life that require prayer, and no other response seems to compare. All of which leads me to the question that I’m needing your input on today.
In conjunction with this new series on prayer that I’m hoping to start sharing with you this fall, I wonder if you would like to join me, in person or online, for a “guided prayer retreat”–a time when we could come together and pray–but not just alone in silence. I would like to take 3 days to share with you some of the ways that I’ve found helpful to pray, and I would invite some of my friends who I know to be strong men and women of prayer to share with you ways that they’ve found helpful to pray. Then we’d spend some time in prayer and worship and meals and fellowship interspersed throughout those three days. I think it could be a powerful time, a healing time, a learning time, a prayerful time.
I’ve been praying about a retreat like this for quite a while, and I think it would be awesome. But now I need to ask if this is something you would be interested in joining me for. And if so, would you want to join me in person or online?
For an in-person retreat, I am thinking of hosting it at the Billy Graham retreat center in Asheville, North Carolina called “The Cove,” on December 7, 8 and 9, 2016 (we’d start on Wednesday night, meet all day Thursday, and wrap up on Friday morning). The cost to use the center would be $269 per person, which would include 2 nights of lodging in a double room (a single room would cost more), 5 meals, and full use of the center and their meeting space. (I wouldn’t charge anything extra for the retreat itself. Your cost would only be for lodging, meals, and use of the center.) I am considering an end-of-week event because it is more economical for you than for a weekend. Plus I know that many of you are involved in ministries at your own churches and this would allow you to attend the retreat during the week and still serve at your local church on the weekend.
Before I book the event, however, I would need to know if there are 20 people who would be interested and eager to attend an in-person retreat like this on those dates. If so, I can book it right away to reserve the spot. I wouldn’t need you to commit or register now, but I would need to know if you’re strongly interest. If so, please reply to this note or write to me directly at eric@theranch.org BY NEXT SUNDAY, JULY 17th. If I hear from at least 20 of you who are strongly interested, I will strongly consider booking it right away!
I am also considering hosting the retreat online, perhaps live-streaming the actual event over the Internet, or doing it solely over the Internet if we don’t do an in-person event. It takes a different kind of planning and setup to record and stream an event like this, but I’m willing to do it if there is significant interest in doing so. If you would be interested in joining us for an online retreat rather than in person, please let me know that too by responding to this note or by writing me directly at eric@theranch.org.
I’ve just been on my knees right now again, praying for you, that God would speak to your hearts if this is something He wants you do to–and thereby letting me know if it’s something He wants me to do! I would be glad to do it, and am looking forward to doing it, but I would love to hear from you if you’re interested in doing it, too.
I’ll include two links at the bottom of this message where you can learn more about The Cove in Asheville. Click the first link to watch a short video about the retreat center and the second link visit their website.
Will you pray with me?
Father, thank You that we can come to You in prayer anytime, day or night, whether on our knees, on our chairs, on our beds, or walking throughout this magnificent world You’ve created for us. I pray that You would speak to our hearts today about how our prayer lives can be more effective and how we can have richer conversations with You. Speak to our hearts in a way that only You can do, guiding us in the best next steps we can take to grow in our faith, to grow in our devotion to You, and to touch the lives of others through prayer. We ask this all in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Christmastime at The Cove
Here are the links to more information about The Cove:
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