Prayer

I think that the longer a person knows God, the more they want to get to know Him.  Prayer is such a wonderfully rich and fathomless subject and something that can be both easy and very hard, uplifting and elusive; something that can release tears of joy and tears of sorrow.

As well as stumbling and stuttering in prayer and in trying to pray throughout the day, directing everything heavenward, I like to write out my prayers in a book too.  That way I can come back to them and see what transpired.  Looking back sometimes I am very grateful that God didn’t answer a prayer the way I wanted Him to!  The best times of prayer are when we pray with our boys at bedtime (some of the things they come out with are priceless!) and then later in the evening with Sonja, when together with God we bring to Him ourselves, our lives, and pray both for those who have asked for our prayers (and also those who have not!), as well as other things and different situations.    

For the beginner (and I think I will always be a beginner but that’s no bad thing), I recently came across an article on the Church of England website entitled “Learn to Pray”, which I really like.   There are lots and lots of books on prayer, but my favourite is Gordon MacDonald’s “Ordering Your Private World”, which has taught me much about how the inner life of prayer affects the outer life we live every day.

——————————————-

Photo: A man at prayer in the Church of St. John the Baptist, Cirencester

Nikon D7000, 35mm DX lens at f1.8, 1/90 sec, ISO 160