I enter into the dark, empty classroom to enact the twenty year old ritual of praying in that sacred space before the students arrive.
I pray over the room, touch each seat, and call forth blessing on the student who will sit in that seat.
This is a sacred vocation. I cannot help what I am doing here.
It’s bizarre. And it’s perfectly natural in this role of royal priest (1 Peter 2:9). Sometimes I kneel down. Sometimes I linger in prayer for joy and hope to fill each heart. I pray for belonging; I pray for a spirit of celebration and laughter. I pray for success and prosperity, for health and well-being.
I catch the eye of an early morning worker who must wonder over what he’s observed: a woman praying in a dark space.
I want to cry out: Yes, this is bizarre, but I promise it’s perfectly natural! It’s who I am–who any Christian is; we enter rooms and consecrate spaces to proclaim blessing in the name of the Lord!
We cannot fathom the power we have. We cannot know the authority. We cannot understand this special designation that we move in our ordinary world as part of a royal priesthood under Jesus, our Great High Priest. What can it mean? We will see only dimly until one day, we know in full.
And we will marvel in disbelief that we never understood our true identity all this time.
