Friendly Fire....

Friendly Fire

(in military combat) fire, as by artillery, by one's own forces, esp. when causing damage near or casualties to one's own troops.

A few months ago I kept hearing the phrase 'friendly fire' whenever I would be thinking about prayer. The more I pondered all the implications of friendly fire, in terms of prayer, the more I began to sense that the Lord was trying to tell me something.

Friendly fire is by definition, when you end up taking out your own people or allies, instead of the enemy. The thing about friendly fire too, is that the ones who are killed or wounded by it, are never expecting it. They are expecting 'their side' to protect them - guard them - not fire on them!

Seems to me that in the prayer arena, we've started shooting at our own people and it's usually over something as simple as : style. Yup..you heard me right - style!

Prayer seems to spark a spirit of competition or competiveness : an ownership if you would, of certian areas of need ('praying for the pastor is my job') or styles ( 'we don't pray outloud in this group'). People...we are not supposed to be fighting over prayer! WE need to be in unity..and in agreement, especially when we are in corporate prayer meetings! That's the point of corporate prayer .

Look at these definitions of corporate:

corporate - "united in one body," from L. corporatus, pp. of corporare "form into a body," from corpus (gen. corporis) "body"

-adj: done by or characteristic of individuals acting together; "a joint identity";

-pertaining to a united group, as of persons: the corporate good.
-united or combined into one.

Do we see the theme here? Going from many parts to one - being united - acting together for the greater good! It's awesome.

When we are in corporate meetings, we need to act as one . Put aside our personal ownership of a particular prayer style and be willing to pray together. That means, I don't get offended over someone who prays differently than me ( that's style) and what I look for is that we are all praying towards the same purpose - that's acting together and becoming united. We focus our prayers towards the same goal, tho we may all pray in different styles.

Now..friendly fire comes in when we start shooting each other in prayer meetings - whether corporate or church. If we use prayer to rebuke another publicly, or use prayer to shoot down someone else's prayer -that's friendly fire.

I was once in a prayer meeting when a more tentative prayer person prayed out something on their heart. Immediately a more seasoned prayer person yelled out, ' No! No! That's wrong!'...and then proceeded to pray out something completely different. Now...what she prayed was great. She was seeing the same situation as the first prayer person, but she saw it from a different angle, and so her prayer, covered that angle she saw. How she did it tho, had devastating effects on the other prayer person. It was 'friendly fire' - it came out of nowhere and took her out - effectively hit her where she stood. It took months before she'd pray out publicly again . Her confidence was shattered and she no longer felt safe in that particular prayer group.

I've seen prayer people literally battle in the midst of a prayer meeting, over style. One praying this way..and the other one praying 'that' way, and both praying about comments and scriptures about the other prayer style, that backed their position. I've seen prayer meetings, where someone has said something completely off, and rather than address it later, in love, people start to whisper - discussing the validity of the prayer or the prayer person!

People...we have got to work together! We've got to support one another. We've got to evict a spirit of competition among our prayer groups. Churches should be able to come together to pray. We should be excited that God has given so many of us a heart to pray, and at the same time made us all so unique in how we operate in that gift. We should be excited to come together and learn from each other - not want everyone to pray like 'me'! Even in our church prayer groups, we should be looking for the uniqueness in each prayer person, and allow the Holy Spirit to 'make us one'. Remember the oneness we are looking for is not uniformity or conformity: the oneness we are looking for is unity of purpose - what is the situation we all, in one accord, want to throw how prayers toward? ! Unity..not conformity!

Let's not use our gift of prayer to pray against each other. Let's not ask God to take people 'out' or 'shut them down'. Instead, if you are sensing something is not quite right with how or what someone is praying, ask God to help them - to heal them - or ask God to make them aware if they need an adjustment in their prayers. You could also take them on as a prayer assignment and ask God to bless them with more of His presence and to draw them close to Him.

I have friends that are very quiet prayer people. I, on the other hand, am a louder more vocal prayer person. My friends don't judge me for my loudness and I don't judge them for their quietness. We are in agreement when we pray, what the goal is and pray towards that end.

It wasn't always that way. I used to get alot of 'flack' from people about my prayer style, because they wanted me to adopt their prayer style! I'd get criticised...rebuked and even ostracised in prayer meetings. I'd try and change and pray like other people, so the group would be happy, and end up not praying at all, because I was suddenly more aware of me and others, than I was of God.

Friendly fire - taking out our own allies and/or troops. Let's not use use the very weapons of our warfare on each other. Let's turn them on the enemy . Let's learn to work together and enjoy the uniqueness of our prayer languages and prayer styles! And let's watch how God has perfectly crafted each of our particular styles to be just like special weapons - designed with specific tasks in mind, each time we pray!

And people....let's not turn those weapons on each other!

Comments?? I'd love to hear some!