I used to be a mailman.
My wife disagrees. She doesn’t feel one summer of delivering mail qualifies me to claim “I used to be a mailman,” but she’s never enlisted in the United States Postal Service. She’s never driven a jeep with a steering wheel on the wrong side of the car. She’s never worn the badge of the red, white and blue and doesn’t understand that once you join, you are forever a letter carrier. To this day, I’m required by law to egg the UPS guy when he brings Amazon packages to our house. What can brown do for me? Brown can get egged. I’ve already said too much.
But if I were forced to rewrite the sentence, “I used to be a mailman,” I would rewrite it to say:
“I used to be a horrible mailman.”
That sentence is now accurate, because I was one of the worst mailman in the history of the postal service. My greatest fault, of the many I brought to that summer, was my speed. I was really slow at delivering mail, so much so that at the end of the day, I had to sprint and jump off of porches to try to get back to the post office with all the outgoing mail.
But my slowness wasn’t always my fault. One day, I was late because of a prayer sneak attack and that is a day firmly lodged in my memory.
I was walking up a driveway on a hot July day in Framingham, Massachusetts when I saw the homeowner watering his yard with a house. I had never met him before, (unlike that family who let me use their bathroom after I made the rookie mailman mistake of eating a steak and cheese sandwich from a vending machine at the post office. Who could have known that thing would be bad? And how awkward is it for the mailman to come in and use your bathroom?) I handed him the mail, we talked about the weather and then he laid his sweaty hand on my sweaty shoulder and started praying.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, prayer sneak attack. I didn’t know what to do. Was I supposed to pray too? Was he the opener and I was the closer? Should I bow my head? Were my mailman skills so horrible he felt compelled to pray? Should I close my eyes?
I was so surprised that I just stood there while this stranger prayed on me and then I walked back to the jeep and continued to be a completely mediocre mailman.
What’s the protocol in a situation like that? Could we come to some sort of bylaws or something? It’s going to happen again. And when it does, here are the three things I hope my prayer sneak attacker knows:
3 Rules of Prayer Sneak Attacks
1. Please segue.
“It sure is hot out today. Dear Jesus, watch over this mailman.” See what just happened there? No segue. No spiritual, “here it comes.” No, “get ready because I am about to bring the noise and/or the funk.” Even a simple, “Do you mind if I pray for you” would have been delightful. Let’s all commit to segues whenever possible.
2. Please consider carefully your touching policy.
I didn’t really care that the guy touched my shoulder. I mean it was there, it’s a pretty nice shoulder, flat and able to amply provide a platform for a praying hand. But sometimes when people “reach out and pray” they touch more than a shoulder. My friend’s wife was at a dinner party when a woman sneak attacked her and laid prayer hands on her pregnant belly. Your call on this one, but please know that if you unexpectedly prayer touch my friend Jesse who teaches Krav Maga, the Israeli fighting technique, he is probably going to arm bar you and possibly gouge out one of your eyes. Your left eye if I had to guess. And then I’m going to need to pray that you’ll find a really cool eye patch or a glass eye.
3. Please have met me once before.
I think prayer is a really intimate thing. To pray with someone you are essentially saying, “Hey, let’s go before the creator of the universe right now and be vulnerable to His word and love together.” That’s a lot to ask of your mailman. So let’s at least have talked about the weather once or football or something. Let’s have at least met once before and started to build a relational platform before you grab my hand and say, “Let’s jump off this cliff into the chasm of God’s love in prayer you strange, horrible mailman.”
Those are the three rules I would throw out for prayer sneak attacks, but unfortunately the Holy Spirit has this crazy habit of not playing by my rules. I’m not sure if it just doesn’t read blogs or have Stuff Christians Like on it’s RSS feed, but the Holy Spirit tends to move in mysterious ways. It might tell you, “Grab this mailman and pray for him, right now, right here.”
And then what can you do? But if it didn’t, if your prayer sneak attack is not Holy Spirit, God on high sanctioned, at least give the recipient the benefit of a segue.
Have you ever been prayer sneak attacked?
Have you ever been prompted to bust out a prayer sneak attack on someone?
Comments
LOL!!! I am so sorry you had to experience that, but thank God you were a Christian already. What scares me is that some of us do that to complete strangers who are NOT Christian, or even worse people who have been burned by the church and are completely turned off to the Church. But, so funny, you had me laughing the whole time I was reading.
I find it very awkward to even pray in front of others I have gone to church with for 15 years, and am involved in various ministries with, have been to their homes, and all they want me to do is open a Bible study with a word of prayer. My style is much more personal and intercessory, and even then not all that frequent. Kinda like I just leave the line open and know my thoughts are being heard by God, and I'll just send him a mental message on the go and know he's looking out for me and the other people I am concerned about.
I've already commented about this once before, but after thinking about it I realized that I've actually done this in a way. But it was one of those moments when a friend of mine was in just severe pain and I just felt a deep need to pray for her then. It was completely unsolicited, however.
[...] Not to steal one of Kevin DeYoung’s features, but if you’re in need of some Monday morning humor, here’s a good read from Jon Acuff (What Christians Like) on prayer sneak attacks. [...]
This is so funny. Thanks!
One small suggestion. I would change the "it"s in this section to "he" – because it might confuse people into thinking the Holy Spirit is not a person:
"I’m not sure if it just doesn’t read blogs or have Stuff Christians Like on it’s RSS feed, but the Holy Spirit tends to move in mysterious ways. It might tell you, “Grab this mailman and pray for him, right now, right here.”
And then what can you do? But if it didn’t, if your prayer sneak attack is not Holy Spirit, God on high sanctioned, at least give the recipient the benefit of a segue."
Great post!!!
Dude, I was attacked yesterday after preaching. No segue. Appropriate touch. No relationship other than he had listened to my message. Another thing that would be nice is if it was stated why they'd like to pray for you. I spent most of the afternoon thinking about, "Did he want to pray for me because he was so encouraged by my message that he wanted to ask the Lord to continue to use me and anoint me, or did he want to pray for me because 'MAN did that message stink.'"
Maybe that prayer kept you from descending from “mediocre” to “horrible”.
Like the post. Think it's pretty funny! One thought though, unless you are totally into the KJV, you might want to change "it" to "he" when referencing the Holy Spirit.
I'm glad I finally found you. Please deliver to me, at your earliest convenience, my Publisher's Clearinghouse winning entry, my invitation to Olivia Newton-John's birthday party, and the acceptance letter for publication of my first book, all of which I am quite sure you, personally, misplaced during your infamous, not-nearly-brief-enough tenure as a letter carrier. Yes, I am fully aware that none of these pieces of mail are still relevant after all this time, but at the very least they will give me something upon which to lay my hands in lieu of your scrawny neck while I pray, without segue, for all manner of ills to befall you.
Love your blog, BTW…
Can i just say how hilarious this blog was? I was in a service recently, had my eyes closed, enjoying the worship ministry when BAM! out of the blue the preacher laid his hand on my forehead to pray for me and I was so caught off guard i jumped. I think he thought i had a demon because he prayed extra long and hard for me. I had to do everything in my power not to break out in laughter.
I laughed really hard at this. Thanks for the smile!
The concept of you being a horrible mailman is just hilarious!!! Especially going in to use someone's bathroom after a bad sandwich!!!
Although, our mail people are quite good – I wouldn't mind letting them in, if they were in need… in the HALL bathroom, not mine, of course (ew)
I originally thought this said 'prayer snack attack'…I've had that happen, start praying and then I really want some doritos or something…oops!
The Holy Spirit is a He, not an it. Just thought I'd point that out.
Segues = love.