Thought for week ending 13 March

 

Psalm 27:7-8

Hear me as I pray, O Lord.  Be merciful and answer me!  My heart has heard you say, ‘come and talk with me’ and my heart responds, ‘Lord, I am coming’.

 

Prayer is an interesting and essential component of our faith.  It is God-given and it is something we should take seriously and never take for granted.  It is mentioned frequently in the bible from Genesis to Revelation and is mentioned most often in the book of Psalms.

In Luke 2, as part of the story of the birth of Jesus, we hear of Anna, a prophet who never left the temple ‘worshipping God with fasting and prayer’.

Jesus prayed throughout his ministry.  In Luke 5, we learn that ’Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer’.

In Proverbs, we are taught that ‘The Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayers of the righteous’ and that ‘God detests the prayers of a person that ignores the law’.  In 1 Peter, this is repeated as ‘The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right, and his ears are open to their prayers. But the Lord turns his face against those who do evil’.

We were maybe taught simple prayers as children which we have carried with us in our hearts and minds for many years that are as relevant today as they were when we first learned them.  In Church services, the worship leader will be praying about a lot of different things on behalf of all who attend the service and for those who are unable to attend due to illness or another reason and for that reason they may cover aspects of society that may be missed in our personal devotions.

When we pray, there isn’t a standard format to stick to, there doesn’t need to be fancy words that we wouldn’t normally use.  It doesn’t need to happen at a set time or place indeed, I was speaking to someone recently who said they just talked to God all the time whether they were at home, at work or even when they were driving.  Prayer is simply a method of communicating to our God at any time and at any place knowing that he will hear us.  If we do things that we know God would not approve of and continue on this path, praying will be a waste of our time and God’s time, this we are told in the extracts from Proverbs and 1 Peter.

In conclusion, we learn that prayer acknowledges God’s existence’, it is a form of worship, it can serve as a means of thanks to God for all we have in this life and it can also be a request for help and guidance for the little things in our lives and a cry for help for the crises or tragedies in our lives.

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, we trust in your light and salvation.  We seek your face Lord, and we seek your guidance in how to deal with the daily challenges we encounter in our lives.  We trust in your goodness and mercy, even in our fears.  We ask for your strength to lift us up when we are feeling down and help us not forget to be thankful in our prayer lives.  Help us not only listen when you speak to us but respond also and let us allow prayer to be a meaningful and regular part of our individual daily and weekly routines. Amen.