Freefalling: How 24-7 Prayer Changed My LifeChana Keefer - 4 Jul 2012

With this week’s 24-7 Prayer Room, I’m back to where it all started.

I remember my first 24-7 Prayer experience.  I had signed up for a crazy hour, like 2 a.m, and I took my then-8-yr-old son with me.  When we stepped into the black light-bathed room with fluorescent expressions of people’s heart’s cry to God splashed all over the papered walls, my son exclaimed, “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!” and proceeded to dive in adding to the wall décor, writing in a journal, picking out some worship music and just generally soaking in some of the many unique ways we can connect with God.

It’s been a few years since 24-7 prayer messed up Chana Keefer’s life and this post taken from her personal blog warns of what happens when you begin to embrace a lifestyle of prayer...

That first Prayer Room still resonates in our lives, a plink of a pebble in water that brought monster waves. I can truly say most of the good things in our lives are a direct result of that encounter.

When our Tulsa church’s one week of scheduled Prayer Room turned into five, the church leaders hardly knew how or if to bring it to a close.  One night, my hubby and some of his percussionist pals decided to meet in the Prayer Room—with drums in tow.  That innocent step into uncharted territory was pivotal.  A few of them began to play while another wandered the room, stopping to read aloud various prayers from the walls.  The beat would ebb and flow with the emotion of the prayers until… their hour was up… and they were blinking in astonishment at each other saying, “What just happened?”

That coming weekend, the church leaders decided to use this unique style of worship/prayer/percussion in the services as closure to our five weeks of prayer.  A few of us actor types recited several of the representative prayers while the percussion flowed, interspersed with worship music—and some of the most powerful connection with Father God we had ever experienced. 
It was freeing.  It was vibrant.  And we honestly had no clue about the spiritual comet we had just grasped.  Within weeks, Mark and I were discussing the tug in our hearts toward moving to California.  Not long after, he and his percussion crew were receiving invitations from 24/7 Prayer events all over the world.  They called themselves “Tribe” and have since traveled to Spain, London and other points around the globe.

In the summer of 2004, Mark returned from a Tribe excursion with a new book penned by Pete Greig, founder of the 24-7 Prayer movement, titled “Red Moon Rising”  More spiritual tsunami waves rolled as we soaked in this revival-in-paperback two, three, four times, then purchased copies, ten at a time, to pass out to friends and family.  All the stories about prayer convinced me it was time to put some discipline behind my prayer passion and actually… pray—an hour a day, every day, first thing out of the sack.  I had prayed through the years, but had never been good at doing it regularly, even habitually.  Therefore, amped up by Red Moon’s spiritual adrenalin, I began the daily quest.

So began Chana’s quest into a lifestyle of prayer. Her desperation to encounter God fuelled her to knock and keep knocking.  She learned that prayer isn’t a cosmic cash machine to grant us our wills with the ‘required’ amount of input. Prayer was something else; something better, and Chana’s heart began to change, and one year later something unexpected happened….

A full year into the prayer journey (yes, I’m just that stubborn) I had a very fun, narrative dream.  In the coming days, the story lingered and grew in my mind until I had the basic premise, plot points and even surprise ending of a fascinating love story.  Soon, I was spending every spare minute—and not so spare—sitting at our kitchen computer as I attempted to do the story justice.  Even a month of adrenalin-induced sleep deprivation didn’t do the trick.  Each day began with face-time on our closet floor where the flow would start, I would soak in God’s presence, then write my heart out.  Ten months later, the first draft was complete.  It was rambling, had too many adverbs and trite dialogue, but my loyal eldest son pronounced it “as good as Harry Potter… in it’s own way.”

I was blissfully ignorant of the impact of Internet sales on traditional publishing and the uphill battle every first-time author must face, but my love affair with the written word—especially with connecting to God’s flow as I wrote—surpassed the fulfillment I had experienced in singing, acting and other arts.  And prayer was the catalyst.

Then in 2007, a full three years into daily prayer, God stopped me in my tracks by whispering to my heart, “What do you want?”

Three years before I would have had plenty of answers to that question.  In 2007, all I could do was cry… until I realized, the pure, overwhelming, fulfilling, scalding love didn’t fit with some of what I believed about God.  And this. Was. God.  No doubt.  Therefore, I needed answers. 
That’s what I ended up asking for.

The ramifications of that morning tore me up, stripped faith to the bone and shoved it into freefall mode.

I’m still falling.  His love is deep.

Now there’s one novel published, several more in various stages, an exciting sequel in the works, the opportunity to write the biography of an amazing missionary pioneer—and constant forays outside my comfort zone that keep me desperate for time with God.

With this week’s 24-7 Prayer Room, I’m back to where it all started—a simple room set up for one purpose—to connect God with His children.  And trust me, there’s no room, no box, that can contain Him.

Get hold of the book “Red Moon Rising”  Get alone with God.  Knock and keep on knocking. I double-dog dare you.

The Rapha Chronicles

You can pick up a copy of Chana's novel "The Fall" from Amazon (in hard copy or on kindle) or from her personal blog

You can also watch a 2 min trailer for the book here

This piece is an edited version of a blog called "The Untamed Lion" which is available in full at chanakeefer.com

Title image is a derivative of the image 'Time is free' by Lel4nd  and is used by permission in accordance with commons copyright license terms.