Boxers on backwards

Sometime after breakfast on Friday I discovered that I had put my boxer shorts on back-to-front. That’s what happens when you get dressed at 2.54am. And that’s what happens when your church is praying 24 hours a day for four days and there’s a slot at 3am that no-one else has taken.

In the run-up to the first King’s Church Edinburgh Sunday morning service at our new building we have been praying, which seems only right given our gratitude to God for this amazing new venue and our desperation for Him to use it for His glory. One of the many rooms in the new place was set up full of information and inspiration to pray, and people took it in turns to spend an hour or two in there praying.

Prayer is hard work, otherwise Jesus wouldn’t have to warn us not to give up but it is one of God’s ways of bringing us closer to Him, prioritising his priorities, realising the reality of our dependence on Him, and seeing the world changed. Call it coincidence if you like but praying with a bunch of guys for peace in Egypt on Friday morning (two hours after my first shift ended) and hearing that the president resigned that afternoon made me feel like I was connected to Someone very powerful.

I’m so proud of our students for having taken over a third of the slots and praying with passion, joy and a sense of privilege. I can’t imagine there are too many around who end a night out with an hour’s prayer at four in the morning but I’m glad we’ve got some like that.