Prayer Exploration #1

We have started to explore prayer. We could spend longer in what we already deem to know as prayer or pause – as is the thing in Lent – and reconsider our expectations of prayer to us, to God.

This will form part of a series of perspectives. However, first we may want to look at what we already see as prayer, as individuals.

Model of Prayer

Jesus gave us a model of prayer, what is known as the Lord’s Prayer, from Luke 11:1-4.

But that point, that Jesus never made his disciples pray… It was through encouragement, through their desire to converse with God, which was the driving force. It was the only model of pray Jesus provided to us, but that doesn’t mean that it is the only model we can use. It forms part of the 19 petitions and blessings of the Shemoneh Esreh.

Different ways of Prayer

We saw how we might:

• seek peace, quiet, perhaps even solitude, listening to Taizé music, to also utilise the Methodist Prayer Handbook each morning as the kettle boils;
• or find a routine of being in a good mental ’space’ using physical movement in combination with distinct stages regarding breathing, aware that God is greater than the materials surrounding us, that God is life giving and embracing that gift of God every single day;
• or from using a variety of morning prayers received through social media, being on the move, and being in conversation with God;
• or from seeking to be in that conversation throughout the day and the night, using Pray-As-You-Go but allowing God to be interwoven into the world even if it seeks to get in the way. 

How can that be, that we are so different? Perhaps as we are wonderfully made – each to our own. Each of us seeking our way of being in that intimate conversation with our loving God. What was important was that we are in that conversation, speaking and listening.

How do you pray?

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Our next session we will focus upon George Lings ‘Sacred Spaces’