You know what a shirker I am when it comes to prayer. But thanks to the persistence of mates who tell me to pray – and to give thanks – I think I am beginning to get it. After all, we always have to ask people for whatever we want, and ask them many times. I pester people for things. And so it is with those God has set over us. We have to ask them for what we want, and we have to persist, and not to change our minds. Our leaders need that constant drip, drip of our requests for more of everything – and most of all, for more Christ. We have to nag them to teach us and to act like they are responsible for us.
I get nagged too, though I am not set over anybody. Wai Luen sends me his papers to read, and once a month he emails me a single line, saying something like, ‘Well, you lazy Englishman, have you read my paper yet and are you going to respond to it at last?’ Wai Luen is smart. He gave us a little yellow blanket, very soft, that lines Michael’s buggy. I look at that blanket every time I take Michael out for a walk so I think of Wai Luen three times daily. That blanket is a kind of intercessory flag, that intercedes for its giver and it accuses me to God for my neglect of Wai Luen, and oh, well, a list of others, who came to London to study but who have been abandoned here without teaching, supervision or support. All their voices go to God. Will the English and the deaf theology departments of their irresponsible universities crack under this pressure?
