Have you ever considered the possibility of an alternate universe? There’s an interpretation or theory of quantum mechanics that simply put suggests there is a potentially infinite number of worlds where every choice we could have made is being played out. Places where our lives have spun off in a different direction because we chose to speak instead of remain silent, to say yes rather than no or to turn right rather than left. Much modern day fiction is fascinated by the notion with TV programmes like Fringe and films like Sliding Doors or more recently Star Trek exploring the impact of choice on the formation of our future.
Being a big science fiction fan I have spent some time musing about where I could have found myself if I’d gone a different way. Who would I be if I had not chosen to go to the University of Chichester in 1999? What would I be like if I hadn’t let my friend convince me to join her for an hour of prayer in a scruffy little room in the back of my new church? When I consider the major milestones of my life that sent my life ricocheting off in a new direction… those few hours in autumn 1999 jostle with only a few others for the top spots on my list. The ten years that have followed my first crash course in intimate, sincere, persevering prayer in the first 24-7 Prayer Room have most certainly been interesting.
How many people get to hear about a cancerous tumour turning to scar tissue in Scotland? Or Churches planted on Ugandan islands after God sends his people out from prayer to see 50 saved? I’ll never forget the first photos I received of a dedicated 24-7 prayer hut being built out of inner tubes, bamboo and palm branched in Papua New Guinea, or the photos of heart breaking prayers written in a school in the UK.
A thousand smells, sights and sounds… they’re what fill my mind when I reflect on the last ten years of 24-7 Prayer. My first look at walls and floors of the first ever 24-7 room covered in hundreds of different prayers scrawled there by many different hands. The salty, tangy smell of the streets of Ibiza, where I got a crash course in taking prayer out of the safety of Christian community. The sound of gasps and woops of my friends as the guy who came to the prayer room to make a documentary about 24-7 asks to give his life to God. Each of these precious moments can be so easily forgotten. But I never want to forget…
My faith has been shaped by a thousand conversations, by hundreds of prayer hours, by dozens of 24-7 Prayer gatherings. Walking with this community, having the opportunity to be such a small part of this movement of God has changed the course of my life. I am grateful for that…
