What Is Soaking Prayer?
A time to be, not to do.
When my mentor Carla Pratico met Jesus, for that first year, she spent an hour a day lying on her bed, listening to worship music. She would let the words of the songs wash over her. “Sometimes I would cry, and I didn't know why. After a while it kind of disturbed me, so I asked my pastor, ‘Why am I crying when I listen to worship music?’ He said, ‘The Lord is healing your heart. He’s doing open heart surgery on you, healing the places in your life that were broken before you became a believer. But he's doing it under anesthetic, so you don't have to relive the trauma.’”
Therapist and prayer minister Judith MacNutt talks about how, when you’ve experienced a trauma, every cell of your body remembers that pain. But Jesus can go into that past and heal you.
He’s the only one who can.
Carla’s extended time of listening to worship music sometimes goes by the name “soaking prayer.” I have been to several conferences in the last year where a worship minister plays and improvises quietly, and the attendees sit quietly with God.
Well, not always sitting. Sometimes lying down. Sometimes prostrate. Sometimes sleeping, which is, of course, a sign of trust. (Parents like it when children fall asleep on their laps!)
It’s a time to be, not a time to do.
I recognize that an extended time of soaking prayer may be impossible to come by. But perhaps you can find a half hour to listen to worship music and simply be, giving space for the truth of the Lord to minister to your heart.
For myself, I have found that, though I do keep a journal nearby, I don’t get much. This isn’t meant to be a time of deeply intentional listening.
It’s more like watching a sunrise or sunset. When I do that, I don’t think, “What really powerful new thing can I get that is going to help my life move to the next level?”
Rather, I enjoy the beauty of the moment. Fellowship, not marching orders.
Soaking prayer offers a time to say, “I’ll sit with God and listen and soak and trust that the Lord acts, even when I'm doing nothing but being with him.”
If you’re in a place of weariness, of dryness, of desolation … try soaking.
Like this hour of music around safety and protection.
Lord, for your weary children … bring comfort. Bring life. Bring peace. Bring joy. Thank you that you go before them. Thank you that you are so gracious to them. If this is a season when soaking would be a blessing, show them where in the schedule it could happen. And if it’s not the right season, may your children find other, creative ways to rest in your presence. Thank you, Lord, that, as Milton said, “They also serve who only stand and wait.” Thank you that Paul said, too, that “having done all, to stand”—that sometimes we don’t need to run a race, but simply stand. Or, like Mary, sit in your presence. Teach us, Lord, to pray.
Thank God who gives us the victory, through our Lord Jesus the Messiah,
Amy Joy
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