Can You Lead Us in Prayer?

“OK ladies, we’ll get started in just a minute. Let me finish up here and then I’ll ask someone to lead us in prayer.”

Oh no!

Six unassuming words. “Can you lead us in prayer?” A simple request. A normal, churchy, Christian thing. Asking someone to kick off the discussion/prayer group/Bible study/potluck was par for the course. But each and every time those words are uttered, I cringe against what sounds like an explosion right next to my ear. Every single time, I break out in a sweat and look for the nearest exit while at the same time trying to figure out which excuse to use.

I do have an exit strategy, careful excuses tucked into my brain, readily prepared for the inevitable. But those words. Those six words could shake my brain like a Ninja blender and throw all of my senses out of whack. Sweating bullets, I’d wait, look down at my shoes, pretend to be reading something very important, try to appear deep in thought. And it always worked. As someone else’s name was called, I’d breathe a soft, almost audible sigh of relief and thank Jesus under my breath that I dodged that bullet once again.

Until that one time. Just another study group. Maybe 10 women in all. Friends, neighbors, prayer partners.

“Shannan, can you lead us in prayer this week?”

All eyes turned expectantly towards me. I could feel the heat as my face burned with fear. I clasped my hands, not in prayer but rather in desperation for a lifeline. Something to hold onto as my mind raced through every excuse I had prepared week after week. Would I look stupid if I dropped my Bible on the ground, and pretended to be flustered with the mishap and suggest coyly that I’ll take prayer next week if someone will cover today? Would they know if I suddenly bolted out of the room, pretending that I just realized that I think I left the oven/iron/coffee pot on at home? What if I just started to cough uncontrollably? What would they think I if simply said,” I’m not really good at praying out loud?”

Even in the best of situations, I do not do well speaking in front of people. I tend to trip over my words as my thoughts tumble across my tongue, as if they are falling clumsily down the stairs. And as a fairly new Christian, having spent most of my life running from Jesus, I am often filled with a shame that causes me to believe I need to make up for all the wrongs. Every new failure tries to remind me that I am not good enough, that I make a pretty lousy Christian. I’m constantly forgetting to bring my little Bible to church with me and even when I do remember, I have to look in the table of contents every time the preacher says, turn to the fourth chapter in the book of whatever. I often feel out of place in church, an imposter, and so I hide in the back and keep quiet so as not to be found out. I’m still learning how to pray, so the idea of praying out loud fills me with fear.

The voices in my head tell me,

“A good Christian would find the right words.”

“A good Christian would be an example for others.”

“A good Christian would have enough faith to overcome this fear.”

But I know better. Because the one thing I’m getting right in this Christian life is that I love Jesus with all my heart. When I read about his ministry, my soul aches. I want to see him, talk to him, hear from him. I want to know him and learn how to live a life he will be proud of.

And so, in that instant that felt like an eternity, I instead did the unexpected. I swept the excuses and scenarios back into the recesses of my mind, let out a breath, loud and honest, a sigh that freed my heart from the constraints of my insecurities and I closed my eyes and focused on Jesus. Just Jesus, sitting in that room with me. And I mumbled a prayer to him rather than for the others in the room. Not the well-rehearsed formula that I once thought might save me from this type of a situation. But rather, a simple, probably awkward utterance that I knew he would understand.

And just like that, I was done and no one even noticed that this tiny moment in time had changed me profoundly. No one said, “Good job Shannan!” No one high fived me. No one rolled their eyes either or whispered to their neighbor, “What was that mess?” No, the words I prayed I cannot even remember. I just spoke to him and it was good enough.

The following week, as our Bible Study leader began to organize her notes, she said, “Give me just a minute ladies and I’ll have someone lead us in prayer.”

And once again, I broke out in a sweat, my heart pounding, my breath shallow, but I also knew that if called on, I would not make excuses. And I’d close my eyes and think about Jesus sitting with me. And it would be enough.

~ By Shannan Chapman. Sharon is mom to five and grandmother to six. She is retired and lives and writes in Tucson, Arizona. You can visit her website at: www.stchapman.com.