Be silent.

Be still.

Wait before your God.

Say nothing.

Ask nothing.

Be still.

Let your God look upon you

That is all.

God knows.

God understands

God loves you with an enormous love.

God only wants to look upon you with love.

Quiet.

Still.

Be.

Let your God love you.

A Julian contemplation. Edwina Gateley

This was part of what was shared at the recent Prayer and Spirituality Evening, looking at stillness.  In a previous post, I looked at some practical ways in which we can nurture a stillness in our minds and bodies.  Andrew Hook talks here about the need for stillness as we come to pray:

Spirituality is embodied prayer, prayer that seeps out into the way we view ourselves, others, God and the life itself. On the Radio 4 program Something Understood the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, in his discussion on prayer with Mark Tully, makes a number of important comments (to read a transcript of part of the interview see the “read more” section at the end of the post) . He talks of making room for the welling up of Christ’s life with us but states we have to still our body and mind and let something flower, or put another way, in the words of the poet Mary Oliver, ‘make space for another voice to be heard.

It is impossible to pay profound attention while living out a frenzied life. Williams refers to our absence rather than God’s, that we are not present to the moment – to where we are. We are often in multiple places and ahead of ourselves, disconnected from our inner self and our bodies. He says that we have to wait and stay with it, for this convergence, for this seeping of one with the other, and that there is a habit of listening or letting things happen to be cultivated.

Concentrating on our minds for a moment…

• Our minds are addicted to thinking, they have to be trained to pay attention (to what is). Our thoughts are preoccupied with the past and the future. There is always only now, which is where God is found. We strategise, plan, forecast. We try to be ahead of the game. We compete and compare and often stay at this level.
• The mind has been compared a multitude of monkeys jabbering and flitting from branch to branch in a tree and to wild horses running round a paddock. This is where we live most of the time. So what to do with the mind, this fussy, distracted defensive mind?
• “Thoughts are like rubber balls, the harder we throw them away, the harder they bounce back at us. Gently lay the ball down by focussing it not resisting it.” suggests the writer Simon Small. We notice them, but don’t judge them.
• A Scripture can act as form of soft focus. Not something to intently chew on like a football manager on the sidelines of a game but a gentle distraction for the mind.

A few words on the body…

It’s not that I have a body but I am a body. Creation, incarnation, resurrection (Jesus’ and then our own) all point to increasing levels of embodiment. Matter matters. The spiritual and the physical are intimately entwined. In Celtic thought the body is the echo or mirror of the soul. The image of God has been woven into the fabric of our being, notes the Celtic writer Philip Newell. The Blessed Trinity dwells deep within our bodies and so we aim to allow this life of Christ to well up is us like a tide.

So, when we pay attention to the present moment, without commentary or judgement to both the inner and outer worlds, the mind begins to still. Space appears around and between thought. A seed is planted and will mature.

Interview with Rowan William, Archbishop of Canterbury:

What are you doing when you pray?

[I am] ..allowing the life of Jesus to come alive in me, through the Holy Spirit. Which means from the depth of my being as a believer there rises up a kind of welling up of life and love directed towards that mysterious source of Jesus’s being that we call God the Father. So when I pray I’m trying to make room for that. I’m not trying to fill up the space. I’m not trying to do something but almost be carried on that rising water. The Four Quartets, Eliot’s Four Quartets – the pool was filled with water out of silence. It’s a beautiful image and that’s something rising up. But for that to happen you have to let go of a lot. You have to still your body and your imagination and let something flower, let something happen and your mind and your feelings sooner or later have to get out of the way. So prayer is communion. It’s that allowing, as again someone said ‘the depth within the depth outside to come together’.

On intercession…

’You don’t send in your list of requests, you don’t bombard God with your demands. You just hold the image, the sense of that person or a situation in the presence of God as if you want the one to seep into the other, bring those two realities together in your mind and heart.

How do you find time to pray and be quiet in this life you are living?

‘I’m too busy to pray for less than 2 hours a day.’ said Archbishop Desmond Tutu …The busier it gets the more essential it is to make the space, because simply going from one thing to the next, if you haven’t tried to put down an anchor somewhere you will really be exhausted and distracted. It’s bad enough as it is but it’s a matter of trying to make time early in the morning to put the whole day in perspective and having enough space then to frame the rest of the day but also simply making the most of those rare moments when not much is going on, to settle, physically settle. Breathe from the pit of your stomach for a few minutes, perhaps let a word or two come ‘Jesus, ‘God’. Just be there. Be there because as you will know, as well as I, that the temptation is not being there. It’s having your energies, your imagination somewhere where you are not actually present. Being with God is settling in the moment and when people talk about the absence of the God in prayer I tell people it’s not the absence of God but the absence of you. RS Thomas wrote a number of poems about prayer and they’re mostly to do with waiting, with silence, a sense of the absence of God and yet in the middle of that awareness of absence realising: well you have arrived, there is a reality and it’s beyond the words that you can find. You’ve got to wait, you’ve got to stay with it. Put down an anchor.

Is there a particular relationship between poetry and prayer?

I think it’s very much to do with trying to get out of the way of what’s happening, getting the managing, fussy mind out of the way. Poetry happens almost unexpectedly. Something clicks, something comes together. There’s a convergence you weren’t looking for. And the writing of that of that sudden coming together something that you hadn’t expected. To be in the frame of mind where these little coming togethers happen – you need a habit of quiet , a bit of a habit of listening, letting things happen. I find that the kind of inner disposition that helps poetry happen is not a million miles from the inner disposition that helps prayer happen.

The purpose of stilling ourselves is to bring us down to the deeper currents of our hearts, where we can begin to notice what we are really feeling, what is moving us at a deeper level of our being, and where these feelings and movements have their roots.  And it is precisely in those deep currents that God is speaking to our hearts, revealing our innermost desires and fears to us, inviting us to reach out towards the deepest desire of our hearts and to surrender our fears and hurts to his healing…

Margaret Silf.  Taste and See.

But stilling ourselves is difficult.  One image Silf uses is a glass of muddy water, that is shaken, disturbed, stirred around.  When we stop to pray, while we might be still in our bodies, internally we are still rushing around, swirling like the muddy water.  Our mind racing around to things that have happened, or jobs and tasks that need to be done.  But gradually, as we learn how to still ourselves, we find the mud settles in the glass, the water becomes clearer and our mind and body become present to the moment, rather than dwelling in the past or future.

We can learn how to become still.  In our western culture, that so values speed and productivity, we have lost touch with the value of slowing down, but this is essential, as we come to prayer.  We simply can not expect to find a centred place of stillness if we treat prayer as one more activity to do in our packed days.  Our approach to prayer is as important as the prayer itself.  I try to slow down about half an hour before I come to pray.  A slow shower, enjoying the water drops cleansing me.  A cup of coffee, hot and steaming, and slowly sipped.  Enjoying a piece of toast, slowly savoured.  All of this prepares me to pray.  My body and mind slowing down, as I prepare to meet the God of all creation.

Our environment is also crucial.  Prayer, when we feeling uncomfortable, is nigh impossible.  We become more aware of our aching joints or cold toes, than the Divine Presence.  A comfortable chair, arms supported, back straight.  Not so comfortable that I fall asleep, but a posture of openness and alertness.  As we sit, we become aware of our breathing.  I find deliberately slowing down my breathing helps me to slow down, and with each breath, I breathe out any worries or concerns, things that are on my mind; and breathe in the peace of Christ.

Other things can help us slow down and find that place of stillness.  Some people find images helpful.  Or a candle.  Or stones.  A scripture, not to read, dissect and understand, but a phrase to repeat over again, that focuses my thoughts and heart on the Lord.  My current one is Psalm 18:1 – “I love you, O Lord, my strength.”

And then when we begin to find a place of centeredness and stillness, we can pay attention to what we notice.  What do we notice about our hearts?  Our emotions?  Our hopes and fears?  Our  desires?  And God, where is He?  What do we notice about Him?  His posture?  His “face”?  His movement towards us?

There are many times when I find this kind of stillness elusive.  My mind racing to the next thing of the day, and I can’t reign these thoughts back in.  But perseverance is essential, and those moments of being fully (or even partially) present to God are worth the wait and all the times of not being present and still in prayer.

When Isaiah spoke this oracle, the Assyrian Empire had already destroyed and taken into captivity the northern Kingdom of Israel, and was threatening the southern Kingdom of Judah.  The year is probably 701BC, and Hezekiah is King of Judah, although he isn’t mentioned in this passage.  While he was in general a good king, the leaders of Judah had decided that the only way to stop the superior might of the Assyrian armies was to form an alliance with Egypt who would protect them (vs. 1-5).

This alliance was not a equal partnership as we might think of two nations forming today.  The only way to get Egypt’s help was to buy it – to cart over the Negev desert that separates Judah and Egypt some of the national wealth to secure the military help of Egypt (vs 6).

A reasonable response you might think.  But along comes Isaiah and says that this is not a plan that the Lord is happy with, nor one that they consulted Him about (vs 1&2).  In fact it will only end in their disgrace and shame (vs. 3-5), because Egypt is utterly useless, as the Lord calls them “Rahab the Do-Nothing”.  (vs 7)

[Click on “read rest of entry” to finish article…]

The imagery might be lost on us, but Rahab was a well known mythical monster in ancient days, powerful yet chaotic.  But the Lord says Egypt is like this mythical monster who sits around, and does absolutely nothing to help!  So why invest your national wealth into this alliance when it will be utterly useless in protecting you from the Assyrians?

This alliance, having been formed without the Lord, means that Judah keep God at arms length.  They want to prophets to say nice things to them, things that confirm the choices they have made.  They don’t want Isaiah to come along and confront them with the “Holy One of God” (vs. 10-11).  This alliances stops them praying, and keeps God away.

Finally in this oracle, the Lord pronounces his verdict on the outcome of this alliance:  it is like a wall (that separates Judah from the Lord) that gives an illusion of protection and security, but in reality is bulging, cracked and will come crashing down, just like a piece of pottery will smash if it dropped on a rock.  Nothing will remain.  The effect will be devastating.

So what might this mean for us today?  We don’t form alliances with other nations, but what do we form alliances with, that give us an illusion of security and wellbeing?   On Sunday, we built a wall (of cardboard boxes) and together we all came up with ideas on what alliances we might form today.  Ranging from work, to food, to success, to national identity, the wall was filled with lots of things that we can form an alliance with, that seems to give us some sense of security or wellbeing.

We invest in these alliances: our time, energy, emotional energy, thinking, and sometimes money, to demand a return from the object of our alliance.  Most of the things we form alliances with are not bad in themselves.  In fact they are good, but somehow along the way, the relationship we form is twisted.  For example, with work, God has given us work for us to contribute to the world around us.  Work is a good thing.  But sometimes the relationship we form with work becomes unhealthy and we are driven to find our identity, a source of self worth, and security from our work.  No longer is the work something that serves us, but we start serving the work, in our desperate need for what it gives us.

The Lord offers us a way out from these alliances.  A way of taking down the wall, brick by brick, before it collapses.  It isn’t easy, nor quick.  But it is possible.  And to hear more about this, you will have to come to Community Church on Sunday 11th …

However experienced or long we have been a praying people, there is always so much to learn.  And we learn to pray by praying.  Insights, understanding, encouragement from others can all help to inspire us to pray.  But we learn to pray, when we actually pray.  So Jesus’ response to the disciples’ question was:  “When you pray…”  (Lk 11:1-2).

So these series of evenings won’t teach us to pray.  But they might help us learn how to pray.  We will be looking at different aspects of prayer during the evening, but the main component will be individual prayer itself – trying out different ways of praying, tools and resources!  And then some time to reflect and learn together on what was helpful and difficult about the prayer.

The topics we will be looking at include: finding stillness in our bodies and minds; rhythm and liturgy & the structures that helps us when life is busy or prayer is difficult; meditation and imaginative contemplation on Scripture; different personalities and prayer – finding what works for us.  All the dates and content each evening can be found here.

If you do wish to come along, please get in contact with me.

It has often been thus.  Even in the days of Israel, keeping God at arms length served their purposes.  Isaiah parodied their response:

Give us no more visions of what is right!
       Tell us pleasant things,
       prophesy illusions.

Leave this way,
       get off this path,
       and stop confronting us
       with the Holy One of Israel!

(Isa 30:10-11)

This almost seems an unbelievable response.  How can it be possible for God’s people to prefer to keep God away?  Is it possible that we, too, don’t want God to come too close?  Could a lack of prayer highlight a far deeper problem about our trust in God?

The Prodigal Son is an incredibly well known story (Luke 15:11-32).  But often the focus is on the younger son, who leaves home with his inheritance from his not-yet-dead Father, squanders it, and returns to find and experience the grace and kindness of the Father.

What is less often looked at is the older son, who stays at home all the time, working hard on the family estate, faultless in so many ways, and yet we discover in the story that he is every bit as lost as his younger brother.   We first get a hint of this, when the welcome home party for the younger son is in full swing, and the older son returns home.  Instead of entering into the house, he stays outside asking a servant what is going on.  Then angrily he confronts his Father with all the simmering resentment under the surface of his heart, due to his perceived lack of appreciation for all his hard work and the unfairness of the treatment of his brother.

The self-righteousness of the older brother is harder to see in our own hearts than the blatant rebellion of the younger son.  We can do all the right stuff.  Outwardly, we can seem a good Christian.  We can attend church; always helping out; serving; teaching; praying with others; bringing friends to church etc.  But we are doing all this out of duty.  We can even pray regularly.  But our prayer seems to revolve around the work we are doing.  The Father seems more like a boss, who is directing the work, than a loving dad who enjoys hanging out with his sons.

And deep in our hearts, the situation is even more desperate, when we find a moment to stop the activity to reflect on its condition.  We find we resent the success of others, even someone secretly hoping for others downfall or comeuppance.  The joy of others new found faith or simplistic versions of faith annoy us.  Occasionally the anger and resentment bubbles out, but mostly we keep it under control by business and noise and not stopping.

For if we stopped, we would be confronted with the hardness and darkness of our own heart.  We would be confronted by our own anger and jealousy.  We would be confronted by own lostness.  And we might also be confronted by the irresistible love of the Father, wooing us back home.

Why don’t we pray?  Because it is sometime just too scary to stop all the activity and to be confronted with ourselves, alone with God.

Many of us have prayed regularly at some points in our lives.  But at some point, the ‘regularity’ turned into ‘spasmodic’.  And we wake up one day realising that prayer plays a very small part in our lives.

The key, I believe, is to establish a rhythm for prayer.  A rhythm that will give us some structure when life gets busy or prayer becomes more difficult.  This post, continues to look at how we practically establish a rhythm.  The third tip is to do it with others.  Well perhaps not actually physically with others, but including others in on own journey.  We were not meant to be a sea of individuals beings, doing our own thing, trying to figure it all out on our own.

Over the summer, I was determined to go to the gym, and get fit (or at least fitter!).  Left to my own devices, I might not have persevered.  But I started telling some others about my plans.  Suddenly, I am not on my own, but I have the encouragement of others.  I have some gym buddies.  They actually go to a different gym, and are probably doing it for different reasons to me, but when I see them, we talk about gym stuff.  It encourages me to keep going, not to give up.

I suggest we find some prayer buddies.  People we can talk about our prayer lives with, when we get with them.  People who can encourage us, spur us on, keep us going when the going gets tough.  I suspect that talking about our prayer lives is harder than talking about gym stuff.  Often when we do, we tend to diminish our own efforts (perhaps this is especially true of the British!), and conversations revolve around how hard prayer is, how bad we are at praying, how inconsistent we are.  But how about we talk about what we do, what we find helpful, how we are learning and growing in prayer?  Pushing through the pain barrier, into these deeper conversations, can nurture Christian community, and help us establish a rhythm of daily prayer.

This series of posts is looking at how we establish a rhythm of daily prayer.  Periodically, I have prayed frequently and regularly but very rarely (actually never) have I established a rhythm of prayer.  So tip 2 this week is be consistent.

I have a shower every morning.  Never fail.  I don’t even think about it.  I never ask myself the question: shall I have a shower this morning.  It is part of my morning ritual.  Glass of water (or two – another change I am making to my life at the moment), perhaps a coffee before I shower, probably some making of breakfast for the kids, and then pop into the shower.  Even on Saturday, the ritual might be elongated a bit (it is not unknown for us to still be hanging around in our pyjamas until late morning!), but I still always have a shower.

We can find a similar rhythm to prayer, but to do so, it is helpful to find a regular time and place to pray.  Fitting it in to our day whenever it seems to suit best, which is probably what I have done for large parts of Christian life, inevitably means that prayer will be more spasmodic.  And when life gets busy, or prayer gets hard, we don’t do it.  Remember tip 1 – start small.  It doesn’t need to be long.  First thing.  On the bus.  Coffee break.  Kid’s nap. Lunchtime.  When you get back from work / college.  Just before you go to bed.  Whatever works for you.

What I have realised, that for me, unless I open my Bible, before I open my computer, my Bible will remain unopened all day.  So I find prayer first thing of the day an important rhythm for prayer (after the shower that is!).  I plan my day around that.  But that is me.  With my family demands, and working pattern.  It might be different for you.  So experiment, find a good time and good place that works for you.  And do it!

Let me tell you a story I told last Sunday at church.  My sabbatical was in two parts.  The first a course and holiday.  The second part was 11 weeks, based at home, but with no emails, tasks, things to organise, sermons to preach, people to see, things to plan etc.  The focus was prayer, scripture reflection, study, reading and personal reflection.

The first few days of this eleven week period I sorted out my out-of-control inbox, cleared and sorted piles of paperwork, and drafted a daily and weekly plan of prayer, reading and study for these 11 weeks.  By the end of the third day, the one thing I hadn’t done, was the very thing I was there to do: pray.  Nor open my Bible.

One of the things I learnt from this, is that time is rarely the reason why I don’t pray.  Desire is.

But I learnt something deeper from this story.  It revealed something about my heart.  I learnt about some of the searching questions I have about God and myself, which rarely punctuate my consciousness, but when other things are stripped away they were glaringly obviously to me.

This Sunday at Community Church, I will talk about uncovering some of the deep questions, and how bringing them to the surface can reveal why we don’t pray.

The second part of Sunday’s Sermon was Mary and Martha (Lk 10:38-42).

Martha and Mary are found in other gospel stories, principally in John 11 and 12.  We see them as part of the community of Jesus, his friends and as people who trust him.  Martha shows remarkable faith in Jesus, when her brother Lazarus died.  Mary’s grief moves Jesus to action.  Mary shows huge devotion to Jesus in anointing his feet.  Martha gets a meal ready for the disciples, and there is no hint that wasn’t appreciated.

If it wasn’t for this passage in Luke’s gospel, Martha wouldn’t have the bad press she has got in church circles.

In fact, when you start delving in this passage, she seems as though she is a good disciple of Jesus too.  Perhaps we need to revisit the dualistic interpretations of this passage, that seem to force us to choose between the serving Martha or contemplative Mary?

Martha “received” Jesus, as he was travelling with his disciples.  This word had been used earlier in Lk 10, when the 72 were sent out in pairs without money.  People who “received” them, gave them food to eat, a place to stay, but also identified with Jesus and his mission.  So Martha’s action was much more than opening her home to Jesus.  It was identifying with the mission of Jesus, showing her to be an important member of Jesus’ community.

Martha was however “distracted” by all the “preparations that had to be made” (NIV).  Other Bible translations make the ‘interpretation’ even clearer: Martha was busy preparing a meal.  However, the Greek doesn’t actually have any word for meal here.  The word that is used is “diakonia” – service or ministry.  This word most often is used by Luke for ministry or leadership within the community of Jesus.  It might include in serving food, but if we make this interpretation we are reading that into the text.

Could it be that Martha is “distracted”, not by the meal preparations, but by the business of the mission and community of Jesus?  Whatever, the heart of her problem is that Mary is not pulling her weight.  Martha’s perspective is that she is doing all the work, and so the source of her distraction is a conflict with Mary.

The word “distracted” is a little difficult to translate, but it has connotations of being pulled away.  Martha has lost her sense of centeredness.

Martha does, what all good disciples of Jesus should do at this point: she prays.  She asks for Jesus’ help and intervention.  She asks Jesus to enlist Mary’s help.

I love what Jesus does at this point:  he takes the conversation to another level.  Martha is complaining about her sister not pulling her weight, and how she is doing all the work.  But Jesus doesn’t respond at that level at all … he starts talking about her anxiety.  Martha, says Jesus, your problem isn’t really your conflict with Mary.  Your problem is really your stress and anxiety.  This is what is pulling you off center.  This is what is causing you to be out of sync.  And, offers Jesus, the very thing that Mary is doing, is exactly what you need to be doing, to get back to the source of this mission and ministry you are involved with.

Jesus isn’t offering a choice for disciples: either action or contemplation.  He is offering Martha a way out from her stress.

In Luke’s gospel, we see an ebb and flow between mission, and returning to the source of that mission.  Just a few verses earlier, the 72 return from their mission, amazed at what they were doing.  Jesus immediately draws them back to the source: rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

Jesus invites us, too, to an ebb and flow of action and contemplation.  Mission in our workplaces, colleges, communities and streets.  Return the source of the mission, to draw life from Jesus and remember whose mission it is anyway!

I suggested on Sunday, using “imaginative contemplation” with the Scripture this week.  Each day read the text, and imagine yourself in the story, perhaps as a different character each time (eg Mary, Matha, a disciple, a onlooker).  What do you feel?  See?  Hear?  What is going on inside you, and the story plays out?  Can this Scripture help us tap into our deepest desires?

Part 1 can be read here.  This is a short summary of the first part of what I said yesterday (Sunday 13th September) at church.  The audio will be available from our website in a day or two.

“There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else.”  CS Lewis. The Problem of Pain.

Our desires often seem to ebb and flow, but it perhaps more helpful to see we have different desires competing for our attention and to gain the upper hand.  We may want to ask the girl out (a desire that flows in one direction) competes with the desire not to face potential rejection.  We may want to get fit by going to the gym, but we may prefer to watch the TV instead.  We will end up acting on the strongest desire.

So I think people of faith do want to pray.  They know the value.  But often, we also want to do other things (stay in bed, have the radio on in the car, read a paper on the bus, watch TV, have a  coffee with friends) which compete with our desire to pray.

However, I believe, deep in the heart of every human being is longing for something Divine.  Something beyond ourselves.  To be loved and to love.  To be secure and held.  To have value and purpose; adventure and significance.  To be part of a world where there is no suffering or pain.  These “deepest longings” are often untapped and lie dormant, but speak of our being made in the image of God.

These desires are dangerous.  To long for something deeply opens us up to pain.  The longing will inevitably not be fulfilled to some extent (this side of heaven anyway).  It is much safer to keep these wild longings buried away, where they can’t cause so much trouble.  But in the process we lose something of ourselves, and what we were created for.

These deepest longings can’t be discovered by our rational mind, which is bad news for many of us raised in our terribly rational western world.  But they can be tapped into through music, story, poems, art, images, beauty, creation, scripture and prayer.  We can learn to recognise these deep longings, and as they poke their head above the surface of our lives, and if we nurture them, they can become powerful motivating forces for prayer.

The desire to pray (and for God) resides within every human being.  We just need to let it out.

The disciples, good Jews one and all, and therefore men who knew about prayer got around the one they called master, who knew how to pray.  He didn’t just talk about it.  He did it.  And after a while of hanging around this man, they realised that you can know a lot about prayer, but not really know that much about prayer.  So they asked Jesus: “Teach us to pray”.

Prayer is really only learnt as we do it.  Regularly.  So it becomes part of us like breathing.  If I sound like an expert I am not.  I am like the disciples,  praying that Jesus would teach me to pray.

So here is my first offering in how to establish a rhythm of daily prayer.  Not how to learn to pray; no that comes as we pray.  But we have to start praying to learn to pray.

So suggestion number 1: start small.

Many years ago, a guy came to church, and spoke on prayer, and if I remember correctly, he suggested an hour a day, using the Lord’s prayer as a pattern.  Monday morning came, and alarm clock set an hour earlier, I spent an hour in prayer.  I think I lasted until the Wednesday, when I went back to bed after after 10 minutes.  The speaker’s book probably still sits on my bookshelves, not open since that day.

Sometime later, I read a book by John White (The Fight), and in that book he suggested praying for 15 minutes a day.  That I can do, I thought.  And I did.  The funny thing was, that 15 minutes sometimes turned into much longer and I regularly found myself praying for an hour (I was a student … a theology one at that – I didn’t have many lectures)!

So start small, with something manageable.  The amount of time really isn’t the issue.  Stilling ourselves in the presence of God is.

If I knew the answer to that one, I could write a book, become famous …

Bill Hybels did it, in 1988, when no-one had heard of Bill Hybels or Willowcreek.  “Too Busy not to Pray”.  I was a student at the time.  And I was too busy to read the book.  It still sits on my bookshelf, mostly unread.  Too busy to read the book, we joked at the time.  And too busy to pray, we often still say.

“Prayer takes time” says Bill Hybels, “and we are so busy!”.  Time and prayer.  We link them together, but somehow prayer rarely gets time.

But here is something I have learnt this summer:  time is never the reason we don’t pray.  Maybe I should soften that slightly: time is rarely the reason we don’t pray.  There may be the odd day, when we really don’t have a moment.  But I suggest these days are odd.  They aren’t the norm.  My point still stands.  Time is rarely the issue.  It is a convenient excuse.

The issue is desire.

You may think you know what I am going to say now.  Our desires are wrong.  We need to stifle our desire to watch TV, read magazines, check facebook, or read blogs, so that we all pray more.  Or that we all need to desire Jesus more, to conjure up some passion for the Lord.

Well actually no.  This Sunday, at Community Church, I will suggest that we don’t trust our desires enough, let them out, let them loose, let them run wild and see where they take us.  I think they might just lead us to prayer…

PS. If you want to do some reading beforehand, you could read a very familiar story in Lk 10 38-42

Towards the end of the gathering, there were a couple of thoughts that were shared.  I hope my repeating them here does them justice.

Leslie H. came forward, having felt as she was getting ready to come to church, that the morning gathering could be a very significant one in the life of the church.  She then sensed that individuals were walking around fountains being refreshed and healed.

Alan C. then spoke about the sign pictured here, that he had seen in a local funeral parlour (do we still use that word?), which had amused him.  But he sensed that this Sunday could be a monumental service for us.  But monuments take a long time to build.  It is a long term thing, not something that happens overnight.

Reflecting on both these words, I sense they clarify something important.  I love the image of fountains.  I speaks to me of refreshment and stillness.  Space.  A chance to stop the fervent activity of most our lives.  This wasn’t some call to deep intercessory prayer, although prayer for others may well be part of what emerges.  This was an invitation to daily stop at the feet of Jesus, and listen.  Be still and know.

Secondly, it was not designed to suggest some instant transformation.  Not some quick fix.  Alan’s thoughts captured this nicely.  So often we give up on prayer because we do not get the results we want.  But prayer, that becomes a rhythm, a habit, and an integrated part of lives, will transform, as the persistent love of Jesus invades our lives.  If last Sunday (or this, or the one after that…) inspires someone to make daily prayer part of their life, then it truly will have been a monumental service.

It seems such an innocent question.  But it penetrates deeply to our core.  This is no ordinary offer of help.  This is Jesus.  And he is offering to do something for you.  Anything.  You just need to name it.

This was the question that a man, many years ago, was asked by Jesus.  He had an immediate answer for Jesus: “I want to see” for he was blind and therefore had no money, wasn’t able to work, and had to rely on begging to just to survive.  He was the poorest of the poor, in a society that had a lot of poor people.  Jesus spoke some words, and the man was able to see.  You can read this story in Lk 18:35-43.

Four years ago, while on holiday in France, I was meditating on this Scripture.  I had a strong sense that Jesus was asking me that question: it was a serious question that he was looking for an answer for.  He might even grant what I asked for!  But what should I ask for?  The more I thought about it, the more I realised what a penetrating question it was.  And most of the answers I could think of, seemed so superficial, so shallow, so transitory.  The question revealed something:  the desires of my heart, and what I saw there was more carnal that I cared to admit.

So I return to my question:  Jesus is standing in front of you, and asking you a question:  “What do you want me to do for you?”  What would you reply?  What would you ask Jesus to do?

It has taken me four years to figure out an answer.  But this summer, I finally settled on an answer, hoping Jesus had been patient with me, as he waited for an answer.  It turns out, that I wasn’t the first to ask this of him.  What did I ask him?  Well for that, you will need to come to Community Church this Sunday (6th September) at 10.30am to find out…

Some people pray for revival and imagine that ‘signs and wonders’ will declare that when it happens, but I was rolling around the thought that maybe we are part of a revival right now – right as we speak – and one that is all the better for not being particularly visible.  I mean, is 1100 individual prayer rooms in Brasil last year not a ‘wonder’?  What about the dozens of new ‘academies’ being opened by Oasis Trust, Emmanuel Schools Foundation, the Anglican Church etc. etc.?  Or Orthodox, Catholics & Protestants all working together as part of Alpha – is that a ‘sign’?  Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong, but I am not praying for a revival where people ‘go all wobbly’ in the streets (although I don’t mind that either).  Something a bit more reformatory, creative and redemptive is where my heart is at.  And I think we are already beginning to see it.

I love it, David.  I would love to see more people thorough transformed by an encounter with God, the good news transforming people’s lives.  But I think that is too small a vision.  I really want to see society transformed.  Not looking for much then eh?

What do you want to see?  What do you pray for?