An Urgent Call to Prayer
What an amazing year this has been. We have seen the Arab Spring turn into an ugly and increasingly violent Arab Summer. A year ago such developments would have been unthinkable, and they have left the region in a very fragile and vulnerable state. We have also seen terrible natural disasters, with thousands of people losing their lives. And in our own country we have seen an explosion of violence on the streets of many cities during August. Madness erupted in a tragic and frightening way, reminding us that anarchy never lies very far below the surface. And alongside all of these challenges sits the convulsions of the money markets and the financial fears which overshadow every aspect of society.
Each of these challenges is colossal – and each of them is beyond us. Gifted and well resourced as we may be, we simply do not have the answers to these towering challenges. They remind us emphatically that we need to turn to God and to do so with a renewed urgency and single-mindedness. One of the main reasons for turning to God is that we have worked out that we have nowhere else to turn. We have all tried the other options at times, but have discovered that God is our only true source of life. In his gospel John relates the heart-rending moment when Jesus saw many of his followers turn away from him. He turned to the Twelve and asked “You do not want to leave too, do you?” and Peter replied, “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
Prayer, like every form of communication, easily becomes stale and perhaps we need moments like these to jolt us into a new way of living. We need to confess the over-familiar and casual way in which we have handled prayer and turn back to God with renewed energy and determination. So easily we are all tempted to imprison prayer in services and quiet times and forget to pray in the rush and tumble of everyday life. True prayer is about the sharing of the whole of life, not a little corner of it.
I challenge you and your church to take active steps to ensure that prayer is placed more firmly at the centre of your life together. Prayer is simply not an optional extra. It is the way in which we open our lives to God and without it we will not only be weak but dangerous. We need to talk together as church communities about the ways in which we can move forward in prayer. We need to look at our activities and relationships and reflect on the priority that we give to prayer.
The challenges all around us are immense but as Christians we know that God is greater than any of them. So let’s renew our commitment to prayer this Autumn with the confidence that comes from knowing that God longs to hear and answer our prayers.
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