Written by Jane Messina
Last November I was praying in the Shores Chapel when I remembered my club was having a ring ceremony that night. I started thinking about the girl that was getting engaged and subconsciously started judging the success of the couple’s future marriage.
It was there that a revelation came to me: I am in a failing marriage with Jesus Christ. Jesus, my bridegroom, knows everything about me, but I know little about him.
Hopefully, you would never marry someone you barely knew, didn’t trust, or didn’t spend time with. Do you know Jesus or just have a knowledge of Jesus?
Many students have asked me why I started the Prayer Room in Shores Chapel. Simply said: for the students. From what I have seen, some students on campus do not know Jesus or even care about Jesus.
How much time are we as Christians spending with Christ? The more time we spend with the Lord in prayer, the more fascinated we become with the kingdom and character of God.
If you don’t believe me, believe him when he says in John 14: 13-14, “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”
Two weeks ago the spiritual life committee passed out sticky notes in chapel and asked students to write down a prayer request. We promised the student body that we would faithfully pray over every prayer request we received.
I was honored to organize the prayer room and place all the student prayers on the wall. As I read them, I was moved with compassion for the student body.
The prayers I read were honest, open and desperate. Most prayers we received went something like this, “Pray for my spiritual life. I need to trust God.”
There must be a switch from knowing God from stories in the Bible to knowing God’s character in our hearts. A true change of heart comes from a pure encounter with the love and truth of God. This is the reason the prayer room exists. If you want to trust God — you can. If you want more of God, you can have it. If you want love, he is waiting for you.
Praying is the answer to your spiritual marital crisis, and the prayer room is open for you. You get to know someone by spending time with them. Your relationship with the Lord is in many ways like relationships on earth. It requires intimacy, trust, faithfulness, obedience and love.
I found this on the prayer room wall, and it moved me with compassion. It is, in my opinion, the cry of many of the students’ hearts on this campus:
“I see truth written on these walls; I read the cries of students’ hearts that echo my own. I feel the longing that radiates from the words, a desire for more, a desire for deep.
Do you feel it? An ache? An emptiness? A thirst? Are you numb? Are you weary? Will you leave here empty when freedom and passion and life are within your grasp?
Lay it all out. Let it go. It will take vulnerability. It will take pain, and it will take everything. But, you will be free, and you will personally know the man who came to shake the foundations, who came to bring healing to fill that emptiness, who came to suffer so that you could live.
And you will know that he came not to save men but each and every man. That he came for you to give you more.
Read the walls. Read the passion. He lives. He speaks. He changes everything. Do you dive in? Or do you fade out? Not because he’s not reaching but because you were too afraid to jump.”
