Prayer

A book on prayer suggests an essential but seemingly impossible requirement for prayer is stillness. Essential because we need to focus our thoughts on God, but we’re distracted by so much busyness and hurry. So what are we to do, assuming you agree that prayer matters?

How to you get still? Is it being motionless, inactive, silent and calm, or perhaps unruffled, tranquil, serene and settled at rest? And what about being silent and peaceful? Do you need any of these, or something else? Remember, the aim is to focus on God – the one to whom we pray, and from whom we hope for a response (however that might come: a vision, a voice, an inner prompt drawing you to a text, or a way of seeing things afresh). And all this whether you pray alone or with others.

And having seen what you need for stillness, what stops you getting it? My problems may differ from yours, but let’s consider a few common tools of the devil – after all it’s him that wants to stop you getting closer to God. So, what about busyness: filling your day with meetings or activities or other things to do? Or whiling away your evening in front of the box, or just reading late (and eating into your sleep, so you start each day tired)? Or an endless compulsion to gaze and tap at your smartphone or tablet? Do any of these calm you to stillness, or do they just make you anxious and unsettled? If you can identify your enemies, then you can think how to beat them. The Lord would love to help, because he longs for your company, and to hear what you want to say to him

Week 1: Oh, Lord, whatever am I to do? Where has the day gone? I do want to pray to you, because I’m so concerned about … and … Please will you show me how to make the time. Amen.

Week 2: Lord’ it’s morning, and the day stretches ahead. There’s all that stuff I have to do, and I can’t see how to fit it all in. Please show me how to resist anxiety and lean on you. Amen.

Week 3: Lord, here I am, but what shall I say? My thoughts are all heaped up and jumbled, and I can’t sort them out. Please help me trust that I can talk to you like I would to a good friend. Amen.

Week 4: Lord, I have such time-wasting habits that I need to break, because they distract me from praying. Please show me what to drop and stop, and give me to strength to do it. Amen.

Roy Lorrain-Smith

In John 17, Jesus completes his long farewell discourse to his disciples before he goes to the garden where he is betrayed, arrested, and tried, leading to his conviction, crucifixion, and, later, his resurrection and ascension. That was all soon to come, but here he prays for himself, his disciples, and for those who later would believe through their word.
For himself, he asks that God may glorify him so that he may glorify the Father, as he has been doing throughout his time on earth by completing the work God had given him to do – but now back in God’s own presence with the glory he’d had with the Father before the world existed.
He then prays for his believing disciples: that •the Father will keep them in his name; •safe from the evil one while they remain in the world as his witnesses; •having unity together, just as Jesus and his Father have; •filled with joy; and •sanctified in the truth, ie, God’s word.
And finally Jesus prays for those who will become believers in him through the word of his disciples, which includes us: •that we too may be perfectly one, as evidence to all the world that Jesus was sent by God; •with the glory that Jesus has given us. And he desires most fervently •that we may be with Jesus where he is, to see the glory the Father has given him because of his love for him before the foundation of the world.
Now that we are those believing witnesses, we can take on his mantle of prayer, that we and others who may follow will be open to all those great blessings. Much to ponder. Much to pray. That many may receive.

Roy Lorrain-Smith

A prayer for each week

Week 1: Lord God Almighty, it is marvellous beyond measure that you allow, invite, and expect our prayers through Jesus – holy and unapproachable though you otherwise are. May we never neglect or abuse this privilege. Amen.

Week 2: Glorious God, light and bright beyond our capacity to behold, yet revealed to us in name and nature by Jesus on earth, may we always and in everything reverence you glory and obey your word, through Jesus. Amen.

Week 3: Invincible God, in your keeping we are safe from the evil one and his threats and lies aiming to tempt us away from you. Please, in the name of Jesus, give us the sense and discernment to remain in your care always. Amen.

Week 4: God of Community, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, bound together in loving unity and glory from before the foundation of this earth, please keep all your believing children in unity, through Jesus, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.