"Lord, teach us to pray"

The Council of our Church in Trentham has the custom of holding their first full meeting, after the elections at the Annual Meeting, in the peaceful setting of a local retreat centre. Shallowford is a good place to consider really important matters concerning the Church and in the spring of 1997 the only item on the agenda could not have been more important: prayer!

As we all struggled to suggest ways to improve the prayer life of our Church, it should not have surprised us to discover how difficult it was to know how to proceed. We were in good company! In Luke's Gospel there is an excellent illustration of how the disciples of Jesus also sought guidance, despite the fact that they had his example to learn from.

Luke 11

  1. One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.''
  2. He said to them, "When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.
  3. Give us each day our daily bread.
  4. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.''

Matthew records the wonderful words of this prayer in a different context, as part of the teachings of the "Sermon on the Mount", and introduces them with a warning:-

Matthew 6

  1. "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
  2. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
  3. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.
  4. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him."

So does this mean that members of the Church should never pray in public and in groups? If so, we were wasting our time at Shallowford. However, I do not think that this is what we are being told. To be a Christian we need to have a relationship with our Lord and God. To achieve this there has to be communication and this is what prayer is!

I hope that everyone who is reading this has experienced at least one loving relationship, whether with a parent, friend, partner or child. If so, you will know for yourself that one of the joys of such a relationship is that there is no need for formal communications and sometimes nothing needs to be said at all, you both are so in tune that you know what the other is thinking and needs. But to have such a relationship with the Creator, the Eternal One, the Source of all things can seem daunting, if not down right impossible! But Jesus told his disciples (and through them us) that God does love us and, during his mission in this world, he showed love to the sick and the outcast before making the ultimate sacrifice of dying for us. Therefore, we should believe that it is possible to build a relationship with Him because, if He already loves us, then it just means that He is waiting for us to respond.

The Bible is full of stories of how the Lord spoke to individuals where they were and despite who they were. Many people living today have experienced that Presence, particularly at times of great need. I know, from my own experience, that once this has happened nothing is quite the same again and you always know that the Lord is near at hand, whatever situation you find yourself in. However, when you are in great distress, intense pain or even facing what we call death, calling out to the One does come naturally. At other times we all do find it difficult and even put off any sort of communication at all. Fortunately, the Bible shows that we are, once again, in good company. The greatest figures all had their lapses, their questions and their doubts: Moses, Elijah, the Disciples and even (the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke suggest) Jesus Himself, on the Mount of Olives before his arrest.

One of the clear messages of the Bible is that we should be open to the Lord speaking to us and be prepared to seek out the kingdom of heaven, as Jesus instructs us. To do this we need to build a relationship with God and the way to do that is to pray. Although other people cannot do this for us, they can help by telling us what they do and have experienced when they pray. They can also suggest words, when we struggle to find words of our own.

So, I hope that you can now see why I think there is a role for coming together, as a Church, to pray. Although, it is never too soon to start praying, perhaps we should not be too concerned if we find it difficult to start with because we have eternity to work on our relationship with the Lord.

A Prayerful Suggestion 

In the spirit of what has been said above, I would like to pass on a suggestion about prayer that David Adam gives in his book "The Cry of the Deer" because it is quite different from the way some Christians would expect to go about it. David Adam is a well known writer of books on prayer and the Vicar of Holy Island, in Northumberland.

"We need to...awaken to the Presence. One of the ways in which I seek to do this is to meditate on created things. Every week I take something in my hands and seek to allow its presence to speak. In the words of William Blake:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand,

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,

And Eternity in an hour."

May the Love and Presence of the Lord, the Source of all, be with you and sustain your prayers, Amen

Paul Newman, 1997 

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