small reflections

I'm thankful for the retreat in johor and the coming plans for the youth ministry. Seems like the cell cluster is getting a sense of purpose and unity too. Maybe the leaders' prayers are gradually being answered. There were a couple of things that I have been praying about since ages ago.. for my friend who is slightly estranged from church, for my own post grad directions (which is still a bit of a blur), and for God to give me the wisdom and faith to persevere in leading the cluster. The retreat at johor was basically a time when I was reminded to keep on persevering in these prayers that I held on to dearest among other prayers. There probably won't be any definitive answered prayers in the short run, and sometimes minor distractions along the way do cause me to challenge the assumptions that I have unconsciously made in my prayers. Still, it gives me a certain comfort to know that the more unanswerable a prayer seems to be, the more it becomes obvious that I have nothing to 'lose', in the sense that I can just keep on doing my 5% of praying and letting God do the 95%. Maybe prayers, at the end of the day, is not about results, but about building relationships. Of course, we spend quite a bit of time praying for ourselves, but when it comes to praying for others, maybe God isn't too interested in how the person's life is a reflection of my answered prayers, but perhaps He is more interested in how the friendship between the prayer and the prayed-for will grow through either party's active engagement to constantly seek council and discernment from the holy spirit. Praying for a 'cell' will not make sense until I can picture every member's face and life profile in it; and that calls for my active involvement in their lives. So often a times I've made sweeping prayers using pronouns like 'they' without actually thinking who are exactly the 'they' that I am praying about. "May 'they' grow closer to you", "May 'their' lives be reflections of Christ in 'their' schools" etc etc. It becomes pretty easy and somewhat superficial to lump every individual's life into the big and ambiguous 'they'. So while certain prayers might be answered along the way through prayers, I think the more important thing that God is looking for is the effort that is put into the various friendships in order for prayers to be made meaningful right from the beginning. That's my two cents' worth of reflections for the week.