She had two minutes on Wednesday, between coming in and starting the dinner, and she did not use them.
Not because she forgot. She stood in that kitchen with her coat half off, aware that she had a couple of minutes and aware that she had not prayed properly in about three weeks, and something in her said: not like this.
She has a picture of what it should be. Unhurried. Reverent. Not squeezed in with a coat half off and a pan to get on and one eye on the clock. To do it in two rushed minutes felt, and she means this quite precisely, rude. Like handing somebody a birthday present you bought at a petrol station on the way.
So she gave nothing at all, and told herself she would do it properly later, and later was ten past eleven and she was asleep on the sofa.
That has been the pattern for three weeks, and here is the shape of it, which she has half seen and not wanted to look at: her respect for God has produced three weeks of silence, and the two minutes she keeps refusing would have added up to about forty minutes by now.
That is your kitchen. That is your coat. And I want to answer that, because there is a prayer in the Old Testament that lasted about as long as a breath.
The shortest prayer there is
Nehemiah is a cupbearer, standing in front of a king, and the king has just asked him a direct question that he has to answer immediately.
Then the king said unto me, For what dost thou make request? So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said unto the king, If it please the king...Nehemiah 2:4-5
Look at the gap.
So I prayed to the God of heaven. And then he answers. There is no pause in that room. A king asked a question and a servant replied, in the ordinary rhythm of a conversation, and somewhere inside that half beat an entire prayer happened.
It cannot have been more than a second or two. It certainly was not unhurried, or reverent in the way you mean, and he was standing up with a wine cup in his hand and everything to lose.
And the whole rebuilding of Jerusalem comes out of it.
You have prayers that are received in seconds. Not a rushed substitute for a real one. The written word records the shortest possible prayer in the middle of a high pressure conversation and treats it as entirely normal, and the Holy Spirit is the One who makes that live in a woman with her coat half off.
Now let me say something about your instinct, because it is not a bad one and I am not going to trample it.
Wanting to give God your unhurried attention is right. That impulse is love, and it is the reason you have been miserable about this for three weeks, and I would not want you to lose it.
The trouble is only in what it has been attached to, which is a rule that anything less than the full version is an offense.
You are not being disrespectful with two minutes. The written word has a man praying in a half beat and building a city on it. The Holy Spirit is not weighing your minutes and finding the short ones insulting.
And now the arithmetic, because it is the part that will actually change something.
Three weeks of refusing two minutes is not reverence in the end. It is a rule you were never given, quietly producing a silence you never intended, while the forty minutes it would have come to sat unspent.
You are free to give Him the two you have. So I prayed to the God of heaven, and there was no time in that sentence for anything but the asking. The Holy Spirit has been in that kitchen on every one of the evenings you decided to wait.
The breakthrough is not finding an unhurried hour.
Take one when it comes, and there is nothing wrong with a Sunday afternoon and no clock.
The breakthrough is that short has stopped meaning cheap.
You have been running a scale where a prayer's worth is measured in minutes, and by that scale Nehemiah gave God almost nothing at the most important moment of his life. The text does not read it that way even slightly, and neither did the king, and neither did Jerusalem.
You have two minutes that count as the real thing. The written word puts a full prayer inside a half beat of conversation. The Holy Spirit has been at that table through three weeks of good intentions.
You are heard in the time you actually have. So I prayed to the God of heaven, and it fitted between a question and an answer. The Holy Spirit is in that kitchen with your coat half off and the pan waiting.
Declare this over yourself
You are in Christ and Christ is in you, so the standing to speak over your own praying was given to you and no rule issues it or takes it back. Speak to the rule and to the guilt, never over anyone who taught you reverence; they belong to God, and they meant it well. What God does with your evenings is His to decide, and however He answers it you are His today.
- Two minutes I keep refusing to offer, you are short and you are not an insult. The Word of God has a man praying between a question and an answer, and a city was rebuilt out of it.
- Rule that says anything less than the full version is an offense, get out of this kitchen in the name of Jesus. Three weeks of silence is what my reverence produced, and that is not what reverence is for.
- God, I am giving You the two minutes I have and You receive them. Your written Word fits a whole prayer into a half beat in front of a king, and the Holy Spirit has been at this table every evening I decided to wait. I am heard here, with my coat half off.
Nehemiah 2:4-5
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