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A “shoe leather prayer” is a practical way of getting a prayer answered.
I learned the prayer some 32 years ago.
Here’s that story…
At the time Marsha and I were in the early days of our courtship. She lived in Chicago and I lived in Seattle.
As you might imagine, we were frustratingly separated by — 2,000 miles.
As I found myself falling in love with her my head and heart commenced with quite the conversation.
My head said:
Whoa there, Pat, not so fast. You’ve got seven good years of sobriety, loads of family and friends a successful business based in the region. You can’t just pick up and leave. You’re no spring chicken. Do you really want to start over?
Stay Put!
But my heart said:
Pat, you may never encounter a woman like Marsha again. They are a rare find. She loves you dearly and you’d be crazy not to do whatever it takes to keep her in your life. Just think about what a blessing it would be to build a life with Marsha and Erin.
Go Now!
I was caught between a rock and a hard place.
My friends encouraged me to pray.
Which would have made sense — had I known how.
But I didn’t!
My prayers where either requests for divine handouts or recitations of words I’d memorized as a child.
The truth is I had years of sobriety but was still a novice in the practical matter of prayer.
Prayer was pretty much an empty exercise for me.
I needed a whole new approach.
Then I found one.
It happened when I came upon a biography of General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army during World War II.
Winston Churchill said of General Marshall, “There are few men whose qualities of mind and character have impressed me so deeply as those of him.”
Marshall was one of the colossal figures of the twentieth century.
What set him apart was how he led.
He didn’t just prepare soldiers for combat, but souls for living.
Marshall taught his troops to pray a particular kind of prayer.
Shoe Leather Prayer
The war had spawned a whole lot of praying.
- Praying on ships
- Praying in foxholes
- Praying in POW camps
- Praying in the Oval Office
- Praying around the nightly dinner table.
Marshall saw himself as kind of Prayer Warrior.
He believed God endowed each of us with the agency to decide answers to prayers.
In a world where only God was sovereign he believed each of us had our role to play in the praying process.
As in:
We can’t change the weather — but can pack an umbrella.
His central command was:
Don’t fight the problem, decide it.
General Marshall believed praying and deciding were flip sides of the same coin.
He encouraged his troops to pray earnestly, but to do so while expending a whole lot of shoe leather on the answer.
The steps to a shoe leather prayer:
- Define the problem
- Decide the solution
- Give yourself to action
- Adapt to the outcome
- Let go of what’s outside your decision
So as someone new to praying and struggling mightily with a big decision, Marshall’s kind of shoe leather praying made sense to me.
- I saw that I was more an actor in life
- less a victim of circumstances
Never trust to prayer without using every means in your power, and never use the means without trusting in prayer.~ Harriet Beecher Stowe
General Marshall helped me understand two things:
- The power TO BE ~ comes from a Power greater than me.
- The power TO DO ~ comes from the power within me.
So on November 23, 1993 I decided to answer my prayer. I packed my U-Haul and headed east to Chicago and a new life with Marsha and Erin.
I also packed two extra pairs of shoes.
My prayer was answered.
Then 24 wonderful years later, on October 31, 2017, Marsha and I prayed a similar prayer. Marsha and I packed up our car and headed west, back to Great Pacific Northwest to answer the call of our growing family.
We packed two extra pairs of slippers!
And our prayer was answered.
Just a thought…
Pat
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You might enjoy this Michael Caine clip on what to do when confronted with a problem.