OUT OF THE BOX

   Roy Rogers   Billy Long   1967   It was September 1967, my freshman year at ORU. There was a prayer chapel on the ground floor of the men’s dorm. It was a small room with an altar and a few short benches. I would often enter it at night to pray. The only light I needed was coming from the lobby and shining through the stain glass windows of the door. The first time I went in there to pray, I discovered there was another student, Roy Rogers, lying on the floor at the altar. He was wrestling with God much like Jacob in Genesis 32 and was in deep intercession and literally groaning before the Lord. I don’t think he realized I was there. He was passionate but not emotional. His spirit was in travail and crying out to the Lord regarding some serious issue. His intensity reminded me of the agony Jesus went through in the Garden of Gethsemane. His prayers were deeper than simple intellect or the shallowness of typical prayers we often hear. We became good friends. I...