Pray Like You Are Dying

You know the song, Live Like You Were Dying? The idea has always stuck with me and I’ve thought about it a lot! My bible study lesson this week brought forth the idea to pray like you were dying. What would you pray for? How would the knowledge that at the end of this prayer you would die affect what you would pray for? I was a little taken aback at first and more than a little confused (alright and maybe a little judgmental.....hey I never said I was perfect) why on earth would anyone ever suggest we pretend that at the end of a prayer we would die? But after reading what Unknown had to say the concept has intrigued me greatly!

How would my prayers be affected? What would I pray for? Our fearless leader asked us all to try and think what we would pray for and like normal when I have no idea what to say, I got the raised eyebrow you go first head nod! When I have a good answer I never get the why don't you go fist nod, it's always when I'm unprepared!

Ahem, I digress…..after a few moments of clock ticking silence I realized what I would pray. Maybe it's my Catholic background, but the idea of a last confession seems like a good idea and praising God for His goodness and grace! But, the other people there all agreed with me, score one for the ex-Catholics, whoot whoot! ;-)

We were discussing this principle, when our habitually late group member comes in and me and the other groupies sit back and watch (somewhat gleefully on my part, because it was not my turn anymore!) him get asked the questions the rest of us had just answered. He was late this time because he’d been reading the lesson at the tea shop (not as froo froo as it sounds, it’s more like a hippie hang out, it smells so good in there!) and was following a train of thought none of the rest of us had come up with.

He told himself that someone had mixed the tea wrong and started praying “knowing” that at the end of this prayer he would die. For starters he said he would pray a lot longer (The bible does say to pray without ceasing!)

Confession was not the first thing that came to his mind, nor were regrets or redemption, it was more along the lines of what would happen to his unfinished works. The people he was ministering to and the like. He would pray for God to keep working in those people’s lives. Then he realized that while he was going to die and his work here on earth would be finished that God was in ultimate control and that while God could work through him that ultimately these people were in God’s hands and always had been.

Then his train of thought meandered to other stations along the line, all good thoughts, but it was the first stop that stuck with me. If I really buckled down and prayed like I was dying, what would come to my mind? What “unfinished works” would I think of?

I am a lover of second chances and you know what? He didn’t die there in the tea shop (obviously, right?) so those things he wrote down? He can act on them! And after I drag my sorry butt somewhere quiet (harder then it initially sounds for me right now!) and do my homework for this week, I can pray for God to guide and lead me to work on those situations, there is something I can do about it! The knowledge of this second chance of sort’s revealed to me, has already filled my heart with gladness!

Is this corny, my fierce love of second chances? You know what? I don’t really care! I have been praying ever since Thursday for that beautiful, sad little girl in the…..erm…..feminine hygiene isle at Wal-Mart, that if I missed my chance at something there that God would give me another moment with her, all I can do now is pray, but maybe one day….. Hopefully some of this makes sense and I hope you are inspired to pray like you were dying as well! =)