Eager Apollos

While I was brushing my teeth the other day I was struck by, what I am assuming was, the Holy Spirit. I was given the inspiration to sit in the library and put up a sign indicating that I will pray with people if they desire some prayer.

It is finals week and the library is filled with students that are cramming for finals, frantically typing papers or groups bickering over their last project. When you look around the fishbowl you see exhaustion on the faces of these study groups occasionally interrupted by moments of levity that get them through the next half hour or so.

Look at the computer screens and you see words racing across a virtual page or power point presentations full of data and graphs. Look at the faces of the typists you see that hope that the next word will be their last.

Between all night study sessions, quad-shot lattes, and Red Bull, Sabbath is the farthest thing from the minds of these students. It is in this context that I hope to offer a moment of rest.

I started late last night and had one taker. A student walked up to me and asked if the sign was mine. I was expecting to pray for all the reasons I just listed above, but I was in for a surprise. The student wasn’t concerned with finals or papers or anything of that nature, but he was worried about his mother.

He made his concerns known and we took a minute and offered up a prayer for her as well as for him. After, we had a brief discussion about each other’s backgrounds and then he jumped back into the fray.

I hung around until about 11pm. I had no other takers and spent my time reading, studying, typing or praying for those around me.

I am trying to spend a couple hours everyday this week in the library. We shall see what God has in store.