What
is prayer?
Write
down what you think prayer is. Keep it simple!
___________________________________________________
Andrew
Roberts suggests “true prayer is so much than something we do occasionally or
regularly. Prayer is the spiritual air we breathe. We breathe in the grace,
blessings, peace, courage, holiness of God and breathe out our adoration,
praise, thanksgiving, confession and intercession. Prayer is an adventure in
itself. In prayer we soar and struggle, wonder and worry. When we pray we can
experience ecstasy and anguish, clarity and confusion. We encounter mystery and silence. When we run
out of words the Spirit breathes out and prays through our groans and
sighs.”
Some questions and an activity
1. What are the problems you find with
prayer? Why are they problems? What do you find helpful that aids your prayer
life?
2. The Psalmist especially brought every
situation and emotion to God. Do we? If we have a real relationship with God,
we can be honest, can’t we? Share examples of honest praying you have done.
3. Jesus has a lot to teach us about daily
prayer. Is the place of prayer for many people only in crisis, or as a last
resort, but not nurturing a relationship regularly?
4. Jesus seems to be stressing that prayer
is about God’s will not ours. This is difficult! Share examples of when God has
not answered prayer (does God ever not answer prayer!!?) or has answered it in
a way that has surprised you or disturbed you? As a church, have we been
surprised or disturbed by the way God has answered prayer?
5. Are we a community that listens to
others and to God? Where is the space in our lives and our church programme to
listen to God? Reflect together on a prayer by Michel Quoist called The
Telephone.
I
have just hung up ; why did he telephone ?
I
don't know . . . Oh ! I get it . . .
I
talked a lot and listened very little .
Forgive
me , Lord , it was a monologue and not a dialogue .
I
explained my idea and did not get his ;
Since
I didn't listen , I learned nothing .
Since
I didn't listen , I didn't help .
Since
I didn't listen , we didn't communicate .
Forgive
me , Lord , for we were connected ,
And
now we are cut off .
Acts 2: 42 – Luke slips in the little phrase “the prayers” – implies use of
specific, regularly used prayers. Mainly Jewish prayers with added Christian
flavouring. Jewish models but enriched
because of the Christ event. Some scholars reckon the Lord’s Prayer would have
been included in the light of Luke 11: 2 – 4 which includes the instruction
“when you pray, say…” Pentecost (a few verses earlier) would have had
spontaneous outpouring of prayer as the Spirit came. There is a way to pray for
us all!
ACTS
In
five groups do a consequences prayer – remember consequences – the sun said,
the moon thought, and the consequence was, folded paper passed to different
groups:
Adoration
- some things you are wanting to praise God for in his character.
Confession
– some things you think we (a large we) need to be sorry for.
Thanksgiving
– what are you thankful for tonight?
Intercession – what do we bring to God in
prayer tonight re his world?
Certainty
So
- fill in the blank then pass it to another group:
O God we praise you because
We are sorry that
We thank you for
We pray for your world especially
for
that you
You are and we Amen.
Adoration
is oft neglected. Gazing upon and being transformed by divine holiness.
Expressing our adoration of God just for the sake of it.
Confession
– can be rushed. “I worry when it comes to confession that we (individually and
especially collectively) are sometimes keen to get on with the repentance (the
changing) without first dwelling in the place of contrition and sorrow.
Examples?
Thanksgiving
– an aspect of prayer to savour and be transformed by. We are shocked when
someone says thank you to us these days.
As
we take time with adoration, confession and thanksgiving we are re-orientated
to, and transformed by, the love and holiness of God.
So
when we come to intercession we will be able to pray in a way consistent with
the teaching of Jesus for the fruits of God’s Kingdom to be seen and known in
the lives of those for whom we pray.
Praying wherever you are
We
find God in the rhythm of daily life. We need daily rituals in the rhythm of
the day, the problem is, he suggests, we have no rhythm! Bishop Stephen
Cottrell in How to Pray talks about other faiths – prayer built into daily
life. There is no embarrassment about prayer, and if it is the hour of prayer
everything stops, wherever you are, and whatever you are doing.
In
our busyness, we might learn prayers by heart. Do you know any prayers off by
heart? Apart from the Lord’s Prayer (which a lot of people don’t know by heart
now even.)
Here’s
one:
O
Holy Spirit, giver of light and life, impart to us thoughts better than our own
thoughts, and prayers better than our own prayers, and powers better than our
own powers, that we may spend and be spent in the ways of love and goodness,
after the perfect image of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
We
said that prayer every day in assembly at secondary school. I can still
remember it! And the headmistress leading it.
Monks
of old said, "Lord, make haste to help me. Lord, make speed to save
me," all day long.
God
is not only found in the routine, he is found in the disjuncture and the surprise.
He is the God of the unexpected. Prayer needs to be relevant, contemporary, and
speak to what is going on right now.
Michael
Ramsey from “Be still and know”: “The praying Christian draws inspiration from
the world. Sometimes the beauty he sees in the world will stir him to wonder
and to worship. Sometimes the presence of the divine word in human lives of
goodness or wisdom will stir him with gratitude and reverence. The presence of
self-sacrifice in human lives will set him thinking of Calvary. More often,
perhaps, the agony of the world will draw him to the compassion of Christ and
stir his will to pray.”
People
need to know the church is a praying people. We offer space for prayer when we
open our doors. We offer words when people have no words.
A final thought
What help is there to enhance our prayer
life? What good practice can you pass
on?
John Wesley’s Sermon: “The Wilderness State”
Perhaps it
is this very thing, the want of striving, spiritual sloth, which keeps your
soul in darkness. You dwell at ease in the land; there is no war in your
coasts; and so you are quiet and unconcerned. You go on in the same even track
of outward duties, and are content there to abide. And do you wonder, meantime,
that your soul is dead? O stir yourself up before the Lord! Arise, and shake
yourself from the dust; wrestle with God for the mighty blessing; pour out your
soul unto God in prayer, and continue therein with all perseverance! Watch!
Awake out of sleep; and keep awake! Otherwise there is nothing to be expected,
but that you will be alienated more and more from the light and life of God.
What is John Wesley saying about prayer
here?
You’ve got to keep doing it!
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