Reading Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline and talking about prayer within the community have had me once again thinking more about prayer: mostly how I'd like to pray more and with more faith.
Prayer is, for most of us, somewhat unknown territory. This is despite the fact that to be a Christian means that you pray. It's simply that most of us aren't entirely certain what happens when we pray: how does it fit with God's will? can/does God change? what effect does it actually have?
And I don't know the answers to those questions. I pray simply because the Bible says we should pray. And that's enough for me - that and I don't know how not to talk to God about everything that's going on in my life (and it's a lot more pleasant than talking to myself!).
And I also know that prayer changes things. There's a reason that when I lose things, within five minutes of searching I'll have prayed. And usually just after I'll have prayed, I find it again - which makes it easier to believe in the effectiveness of prayer.
And this weekend, I saw the effectiveness of praying for lost things again: even when the lost thing was not mine, and it was lost because someone else had moved it. On Saturday morning, my neighbour asked me if I knew anything about her bike - she was heading out with the kids and it wasn't downstairs and the door was open. Everything thus pointed to it having been stolen. I had no idea what to do - so I prayed that it had only been borrowed and that it would once again be found. Shortly after lunch, my neighbour called me - she was walking to the train station and on the other side of the road, she had seen and found her bike: could I come and guard it while she went home to pick up her extra bike key? Yes!!
Coincidence? maybe. But I have been reminded again that these kind of crazy coincidences tend to happen more often when we pray. And that's inspiration enough to want to pray more.
2 comments:
Tof!
Brenda Janssen Kuyper posted the following via Facebook, and I thought it worth sharing also here:
"so true... and when God says "no" it challenges our faith as well... for example, looking (and praying) for 3 hours as looking for the 2 year old's soother, which was lost the NIGHT before we went camping, and it was our last one. So desperately wanted to have it camping, and yes, it made camping quite difficult. However, clearly it was God's will as much as it STUNK. And now, she doesn't need it anymore, despite the fact I found it 2 weeks later! :o)
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