The Security of Footsteps In Prayer

The president’s home here at GBS is a one-hundred-year-old house with a basement, two floors for living and a third-floor attic. Needing a place for my “prayer closet,” I tidied up a corner room in the attic that has three small windows overlooking the campus. I was elated with my little chamber because it was the one place in the house that I could go that gave me both complete solitude and the confidence that no one could hear anything as I discoursed with the Master. I did know that my prayer room was directly above my son’s bedroom. I didn’t know that with every step I took (I walk when I pray) a corresponding squeak could be heard by my son below.

A few days ago I was up in my room praying at an unusual time. Josh happened to be in his bedroom studying. When I came down, he asked in a concerned voice if something was wrong or if I was preaching that night.

With my curiosity aroused, I simply responded, “Why do you ask, son?”

“Well,” he said, “I just heard the floor squeaking in the prayer room.”

Apologetically I said, “I hope I didn’t disturb you!”

He responded with words that I will take with me to my grave. “Oh, no, Dad! It makes us feel safe when we hear you up there.”

My own childhood was marked by a praying mother. My memories of growing up on a small farm are filled with the sounds and scenes of Mother praying. Many were the times that I would follow the sound of her voice to a fallen log at the end of the woods, or to a cattle trough behind the old barn, only to find her in deep communion with God. That upturned face, bathed with tears, is etched on my mind’s eye forever. That familiar voice, interceding for her family, still rings in my ears as if I were a boy again hiding in the shadows of that old barn. Death has stilled her voice, but the legacy of her prayer life lives on.

Parents, are you praying? There is no experience of conversion or any work of grace, which will provide immunity against the lack of prayer. When prayer fades out, power fades out. If intercession ceases, spiritual security in the home is lost. We are as spiritual as we are prayerful – no more, no less.

Our children need to hear the steps of Mom and Dad in prayer or on the way to prayer. I heard them, and I want my boys to hear them, so that someday they will give their children “the security of footsteps in prayer.”