The Four Biggest Things God Taught Me in Haiti (#3: Prayer and Compassion)

3. Prayer and Compassion

At fall RSC (raider sister’s for Christ) retreat last semester, God convicted me of having a weak prayer life, so since then, the Lord has pushed me to pray more. Reading scripture has always been the dominating part of my spiritual life, but God has done so much through prayer throughout this school year. Now an unnatural part of my spiritual life is beginning to become natural.

This semester I started a study over the book of Nehemiah by Kelly Minter. The first two days of the study were about Nehemiah’s compassion and dedication to prayer. These were the two areas I felt I lacked the most, so it was funny of the Lord to lead me to this study.

In Nehemiah, the walls of Jerusalem were destroyed, and the people of the town were in great distress. Even though Nehemiah may have had some distant relatives in Jerusalem, the destruction of the town didn’t affect him directly at all. However, his response to this tragedy upon God’s people was weeping and mourning for days. I am blown away by this amount of compassion Nehemiah had for these people. It is so obviously compassion from the Lord. I have been praying that God would break my heart for what breaks His, turn my heart of stone into one of flesh, and make the numb parts of my heart sensitive to the Spirit. I have without a doubt seen the compassion God has given me in my relationships with people and for the Haitians. It allows me to continue to speak with boldness, but also with gentleness.

After Nehemiah wept and mourned, he responded by fasting and praying for about months. His natural response to tragedy was fasting and praying. This is so convicting. Not only did he do this for a day or a week, but every day for four months – there is such desperation and persistence in this that the Lord did not overlook. Following this season of fasting and prayer, he begin to plan how to practically carry out what the Lord had put in his heart to do. I’m such a planner, so I think it’s awesome that Nehemiah is a biblical example of prayer and planning working together.

However, because this prayer warrior mentality never came natural to me, I asked God to give me a passion for prayer. Praying for prayer? Weird, right? But my Father answered. I was put on ministry team for Foundation Staff, which is a lot of prayer. In Haiti, I was forced to rely on Scripture and continuous prayer, which was so healthy for me. Ryan, who evangelized with me a lot, referred to me as a prayer warrior, which is crazy because I totally was not at all at the beginning of the year.

Most importantly, I’ve learned the vital importance of prayer. It is a way for us as children of God to join in the work He is already doing. He hears us. He actually hears us. And He listens. Prayer increases the intimacy in your relationship with God. I tend to cling to the characteristics of a sovereign, holy God rather than my personal relationship with Him. He makes himself personal to me and desires that Fatherly intimacy. It’s so awesome that we can speak and listen to the same God who spoke the universe into motion.