Prayer

Have you ever been asked to pray for someone? That person, a friend, family member or acquaintance, is having a problem or issue and they ask you to pray for their situation? I have and like a good friend I would say yes and then in some none prayerful moment, when they crossed my mind, I would ask God to give that person strength. That was prayer to me, mostly because I was much to busy to do any sit down praying. But as I got started moving along in my walk with Christ I started spending time talking to Him and really asking for his protection and help over those who would ask me for prayer. I can say that over the past 5 months that prayer life that I worked so diligently to create and mould has dwindled away to almost nothing except the occasional outburst or statement of fact toward God. And I have written in the past about praying and prayer so I'm not totally lost on the prayer life factor, it has however become a 'job', a 'work' that I do not strive for or strive to accomplish.

Last week, yes last week, I read a blog that I have been following for the love of a horse and like in the past, I am stealing something from his blog. Mind you, I do not know this person, I have never met him, I only follow his blog because he details the past of the Arabian horse of which I love to read. Last week, he had "Push" on his blog, so as interested as I am I had to read it (curiosity didn't only kill the cat - it lured the cat first). So I began reading about the writers friend who was dealing with what she thought was an old and sick horse. How all of her attempts to fix it had led to an act of desperation to call a horse communicator (the only thing I can tell you - since I have never heard of this type of person - is that there are people called "horse whisperers and I think this 'communicator falls into that category). Even more interested, I dove deeper into the blog. This communicator couldn't get any response or feel for the older sick horse but in the midst of the field a yearling filly came running up to her with, apparently, a lot to say. So the communicator asked the filly about the old and sick mare and without hesitation the filly responded "oh you mean the praying mare". The communicator asked the filly what she meant and in quick response, and I can only equate this to a child who would instantly respond to a question, the filly said "she prays all the time, alone and apart from the rest of the heard, and she prays that the evil spirits that are attacking her owner are not successful and that He will keep her owner safe." I have always had animals and when I was about 12 received my first horse, so I have become in-tune with them knowing that something is wrong with them by the way they act or don't act in the field, at feeding time, and other small thing that they tell me by their body language. This is the first time I have ever heard anything like this communicator heard from this young filly. And it made me start looking in my pasture at my mares, and I remembered noting over the past summer, that one of them would be off alone without the other 2, grazing and not really caring what the other 2 were doing, and I thought the 2 together were being mean to the one. After reading this blog, I wonder how much praying they were doing? I wonder if, for some reason, they know that in this house is a sad spirit that moved in 5 months ago? And I wonder if the one's separateness was not driven separateness but intentional separateness? In Romans 12:12 Paul tells believers "be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer". I don't know who he was talking to and I don't know that it matters. I do know that these are words that have escaped my life and have become a struggle. But in the midst of this struggle and lack of joy, patience and prayer, I wonder if the mares I spent so much time with in the pasture have taken that responsibility upon themselves? I know you're thinking I'm crazy!! But why? Why would it be so different for a pet, that loves me, to ask God, whom I believe they know, for protection?

In Matthew 6:6 Jesus is talking and tells His followers "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." I know that this is relating to people not being 'hypocrates' and showing off but I wonder, somewhere in my heart, if my horses have not done just this? They have no room but by separating themselves they are, in essence, alone and in secret, praying. I can, with all parts of my spirit, believe this; I was not reading that particular blog for something to do at night but delaying going to work that morning. And I believe, to some extent, that God was trying to tell me that someone was praying for me that was closer to me than I thought. And you may not believe it and you don't have to believe. But I do, I see one of my mares off and alone and I look at them differently now. I don't start fretting that something is wrong or there has been a clique formed but that maybe just maybe that one mare is doing something for me. Maybe they are being faithful in prayer for me, someone that they love, when I can not be faithful. So call me crazy, nuts, coocoo, and odd; don't believe that my pets have the connection with God that I missed; but I ask you, what are your pets doing that is stricking a concern in you? What are you looking at that they are doing differently? I bet, and more now without much doubt, that they are taking up a position of prayer that you may not have right now. A position with thier God too and asking for your protection in a time when you can not ask. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer.