Worship Central—Stir A PassionSample

PRAY Often, we can feel guilty or discouraged at the mention of prayer. It can feel like we are never doing enough, that our prayers aren’t making a difference or that God seems to answer others more than ourselves. If we set aside an hour for prayer, after bringing to God everything we can think of we look at the watch to see only five minutes has passed. Yet I love the fact that even the disciples needed to ask Jesus "teach us how to pray" (Luke 11:1). They had watched His life and seen the power of prayer in action—so they were naturally inquisitive. Jesus gives them this simple but powerful framework which is now one of the most famous pieces of scripture. As the Church of England website puts it, "It’s the prayer which teaches people to pray."* As I’ve meditated on these verses over the years I’ve been struck by their simplicity when life can seem so complicated. They have encouraged me to keep things simple in prayer, to be direct and pray for God’s provision, to trust his power to change situations, to recognize forgiveness is a constant need for ourselves and others in order to live a full life, and of course the prayer reveals that life (and prayer itself) works best when it begins and ends in worship: "Our Father in heaven, Holy is your name" and "Yours is the kingdom the power and the glory."* Whatever the season, whatever the feeling, I’ve discovered God likes it when we pray, when we say we can’t do anything on our own without Him, woven right into the heart of things. It is as essential as breathing if we want to live and you don’t need to be an expert to start. As Eugene Peterson says: Prayer is not something we pull out of the web of revelation and incarnation and then sign on to be prayer warriors. It is more along the analogy of breathing: if we are to live, we all have to do it. Maybe today is the moment to reset and start praying again, or to be intentional about trusting the simplicity of the Lord’s prayer. *Church of England.org *The final sentence, giving glory to God, is called the doxology. It is not part of the New Testament text, but was added very early on.