Peripatetic Praying

per·i·pa·tet·ic /ˌperipəˈtetik/

Adjective: Traveling from place to place, esp. working or based in various places for relatively short periods.

Noun: A person who travels from place to place.

Synonyms: adjective. Itinerant

noun. Traveller – wayfarer – traveler

http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/peripatetic

There are lots of ways to pray: silently or out loud, extemporaneously or read, conversationally or at the top of your lungs (I'm told this is the way Koreans like it), in English or in tongues, sung or written, alone or in a group. I've done them all (though praying silently is difficult for me as is shouting my prayers. Pentecostal though I may be, North Americans tend to want to take turns and listen to one another as opposed to all praying at the same time. We reserve our enthusiasm for football games.) There are various postures to prayer – kneeling, prone, hands clasped or raised in the air. If I had to choose a word that best characterizes my personal prayer activity, however, I would describe myself as a peripatetic pray-er. I pace, usually in the quiet of our sanctuary making rounds up and down the aisles. Over the years, I have found that when I am alone in our worship facility if I kneel I get sleepy. In my attempts to quiet myself before the Lord, an awful din of things I have to do or things I have failed to do roar around me. So, pacing seems to help me focus and quiet the distracting sounds within me. But in the last couple of years, I have developed a new way for me to pray. Much has been written on prayer-walking, the act of “praying on site with insight.” But I pray on the run.

If its' red its been run

I am an avid runner who has logged over 10,000 miles and run in dozens of races of various lengths since 2000. I'm an early morning runner as well who prefers getting my run in before my day takes off. On my running days (I only run 4 days a week), my alarm goes off around 4 a.m. and by 4:45 or so I am out the door for a run that varies between 8-10 miles depending on how I'm feeling or whatever race I may be training for. As I have shared elsewhere (Crossing the Century Mark for 2012), one of the items on my bucket list is to run every public road in Barron County. In my mind, it's a prophetic working out of Genesis 13:17, God's command to Abram to “go, walk the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you” (NIV). I want to run down every road in Barron County so that there is no lane, no avenue, no dead end, no farm road where a disciple of Jesus has not been. Admittedly, it really is a bucket list in that it may take the rest of my days to “get 'er done” as they say around here. So on Saturdays, my long run day, as I head down a dark stretch of road I have never run before I imagine the light of Christ steadily moving over the literal highways and byways of the county I call home. I've got a long way to go.

What I usually see on my early morning runs

I don't listen to tunes as I head out on my run (although often the cadence of my shoes hitting the pavement brings a song to mind.) My thoughts ramble all over the place from stuff that I've got to do to my reflections on things that have happened last night or long ago, from the ridiculous to the sublime. It all rumbles around up there like BBs in a tin cup. A few years ago, however, I began to consciously make an effort to pray as I pass certain households of people I know or different worship facilities in our town. It's easier said than done. Although I'm only running at what elite runners would refer to as a leisurely pace, it's fast enough for me. So what I pray as I run by is the epitome of a sound bite as in, “Lord Jesus, bless this home and all who live in it” or “May this fellowship of believers remain faithful to you.”

A few years ago, I found myself offended at a leader of another fellowship in our town who in my estimate was failing his pastor miserably. Mind you, the guy hadn't done anything to me. But he had – or at least I felt he had – let his pastor down and since his pastor was my friend, I was offended for him. (For the record, my friend didn't seem too upset at this guy's behavior even though I thought he should be.) In any case, after carrying this indignation around for awhile, one early morning while running by his home the Spirit of God prompted me to pray for him and so I did. And while I don't run by his home every morning, every time I did I began to make it my habit to pray for this man, his wife and their children. A few months later, at a community function, this man emerged out of the crowd and slapped me on the back and we chatted away like old friends. Even though I had released my disappointment with him months before, from that night we have been on warm terms. I credit that to the Holy Spirit at work in my heart. That experience has only strengthened my resolve now to continue to run and pray.

After all these years I still have a few roads to run in town

The Desert Fathers and Mothers in the third century after Christ walked the roads of Palestine, developed a practice called “Breath Prayers”, prayers that literally could only be spoken in one breath. That fits my running routine perfectly. I'm no mystic like Antony, but when I'm running past the home of a fellow pastor who has been struggling with depression for years, I pray, “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you” (Ephesians 5:14). Or when passing the home of a young person on our Cross Country team who is not in relationship with Jesus yet I breathe, “Reveal yourself to her, O Lord.” What used to take conscious effort now almost seems instinctive. I see the home of a person I know and in my mind I exhale a prayer of blessing, of help, of strength, of peace. Who knows if God himself has not directed me down their street that morning for that very purpose.

It's not the only way I pray. I journal. I pray in my prayer language. I pace the floor of the sanctuary. I read and meditate on the Scripture. But as I don my running shoes and head out the door in a way that makes sense only to me, I feel like I'm strapping on a sword and heading into the fray to give battle against the powers that would affront my friends this day. And as I do, this prayer is on my lips: “May my heart pump God's Word like blood through my veins and may my feet be as sure as a cat's” (Psalm 37:31, The Message).

This is a common sight for me in the early hours

 I should add a postscript just so no one gets the idea that I am somehow saintly as I run. I have prayed other prayers as well. Like every time a driver feels compelled to turn on their brights when they see me (and thus blinding me),  instead of turning them down, I bark out a "Geeze..." and resist the urge to signal them with my right middle finger. A few weeks ago, when on a darkened street a skunk ran out in front of me, the first words that screamed into my mind as I instinctively picked up the pace was "JESUS...SAVE ME!" He did.