It took two and a half years, but I finally finished reading Les Miserables (insert wild, nerdy rejoicing). In it, I read about a major cleanup operation – the saturated underground sewer system in Paris.
It was a formidable campaign; a nocturnal battle against pestilence and suffocation.
Trust me, it’s safe, nothing graphic. Let’s keep going.
The operation was complicated; the visit entailed the necessity of cleaning; hence it was necessary to cleanse and at the same time, to proceed…They advanced with toil. The lanterns pined away in the foul atmosphere. From time to time, a fainting sewerman was carried out.
Still with me? One more little section:
At certain points, there were precipices. The soil had given away, the pavement had crumbled, the sewer had changed into a bottomless well; they found nothing solid; a man disappeared suddenly; they had great difficulty in getting him out again.
— Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
The project was tackled in 1805 because one man was willing to go into the putrid darkness and do something about it.
His name was Pierre Bruneseau. He did what needed to be done in the place and time he lived in, willing to be the cleanup operation and go into the dark when others shuddered at the thought of it.
God nudged me as I read it. What would happen if each of us took this approach with prayer?
What would happen if those darkest, most hopeless places, institutions, and people were tackled in prayer on a level that no one has had the grit and persistence to take on before?
What if we prayed – really prayed, with bright, life-giving detail – over those who’ve grown wild, refusing to admit fault, admit reality, admit their own weakness? What if we were brave enough to picture what it would look like if the darkest businesses were replaced with those that breathed life in a community – and then we prayed it into existence?
A friend said this in a sermon and it stuck with me: The presence of fire in the Bible often symbolizes the presence of God. The fire on the mountain, the burning bush, the pillar of smoke, the tongues of fire that could not be contained in a room.
His presence sanctifies, purifies, covers, and brings light.
Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
– Hebrews 12:28-29
The light yoke of responsibility, maturity, and surrender are only a breath away. The heavy yoke of filth and blackness costs so much, and lies to those who are in it that the effort to take the deep breath of surrender isn’t worth it. What if we made the road smoother through prayer that refuses to give up on them?
I’ve also been the one who was lost, and losing, and needed someone to fight in prayer for me. Many of us would not be who we are today without those who fought the darkness for us.
We have loved ones stuck in this kind of mire, and this is where the fight comes in for those of us who love them and are tempted to just wash our hands and give up on them. Giving up seems easier to us, just as it seems to them, because the pain of disappointment after raised hopes is so hard to bear.
But this stubborn, unyielding prayer is where we fight, because the decision between hope and despair is where the battle rages. This is where the outcome of victory or defeat is decided. And we should take someone with us, because even spiritual proximity to the morass can threaten to suck us under, too. We can be the powerful loving ones, clinging to a healthy vision of the one who is lost in darkness, refusing to let it go.
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
– 1 Peter 5:8-9
We cling to this hope and pray it into existence regardless of the blackness that pulses and threatens. We could fade away and give up, but heroes run into the battle and not away from it. Our loved ones need us to be those heroes – because they too are meant to be heroes, and that’s why the enemy fights so desperately for them.
That enemy whispers, “Give up. Lower your weapons.”
And we respond, “Fire.”
This is an excerpt from Oh My Soul: Encountering God in Honest, Unconventional (and Sometimes Messy) Prayer, shared now because it seems like a good time to lean deeper into praying light into dark places. Got a dark place you’re praying for? I’d love to hear about it in the comments, or pray with you for it if you’d like to contact me.
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