Hi, hope you are all keeping safe and well. I thought I would write a short reflection on prayer as I guess with more time on our hands and because of the current need prayer will be at the forefront of our minds. I hope you find it an encouragement.
As Christians we know we should pray and that it is a pretty important part of our lives, however I think most of us are conditioned to think we are not very good at it. Especially so if for whatever reason we don’t feel good about ourselves.
Often if we don’t feel we are doing enough praying we often feel condemned or guilty, and if we are not careful prayer and prayer times can then easily become quite a legalistic experience without joy and the presence of God and If we are honest we may admit that prayer can be quite difficult at times and it can be a struggle, of course the enemy does not like us to pray and that is a consideration and a battle we have to fight.
I think many of us may feel pretty useless at it but I am going to suggest that we are all much better than we think! But what exactly is Prayer?
We pray because we sense that there is a God beyond ourselves that we can speak to and that he will hear us, respond and address our concerns. The Christian gospel goes further in saying that God is a God of love and that God, lovingly and actively seeks us out. It is in the very nature of God to desire relationship with us.
This is an amazing fact that it is God who takes the initiative in prayer and calls us to respond in a relationship with him. Prayer is primarily God’s business rather than ours. God loves us and this relationship he desires with us can be seen throughout the Bible, and indeed was the reason Christ came into the world that we may be restored in a right relationship with him.
We are all created in the image of God and if this is the case we cannot be fully ‘human’ without this relationship and God is active in pursuing it. Sometimes it is just enough to recognise that. I am not here talking about intercessory prayer although that is important but comes later. I think we often mistakenly fall into the trap that prayer is asking God for things but he is not a vending machine and we need to recognise that it is building that relationship with him is what he is after. God wants to be our friend! He is well aware of our weakness and that is why the person of the Holy Spirit was sent to counsel and help us in the things of God.
The New Testament makes it clear that the Spirit helps us in our weakness, he lives within us and is always wanting to speak to us about the things of God if we would only listen, he also inspires us to pray and indeed is praying within us.
This can open up amazing things for us, for instance we all see and rejoice in the beauty of creation especially at this time of year, just a walk round your garden or in the park (remember the two metre rule!) should inspire us and cause us to worship and be joyful because God can speak to us through creation, indeed I think he is always trying to speak to us through many things, things that are good and uplifting, I think he is speaking a lot at the moment, perhaps it might be a good exercise to think of some of those things and offer thanks.
This can often be seen in our relationships and friendships in the service of God, it is good to meet together to worship and hopefully it won’t be too long before we do that again. To pray with and care for each other and I know God is asking us to do that a lot at the moment, when we don’t see people our hearts and prayers reach out to them, this is indeed God in us praying, supporting his people.
Believe me I do feel that God is very much at work at this time. Let us use it to listen to what God might be saying and I think he’s saying a lot. Recently Kay was walking our little dog on the Racecourse and came upon this tree about to burst into blossom and leaf and she had this overwhelming impression that through this God was saying ‘Behold, I am doing a new thing’.
Indeed, I believe God is always doing new things, may at this time we sense his love and security in new ways and let him do a new thing in us.
Ken Clark
