The miracle of prayer

There are times in ministry when you are taken aback by things that you didn’t expect to hear. Last Saturday at the end of our conversation to plan a funeral was one of those times, as the lady I was speaking to told me about her experience of prayer. She said that prayer is simply having a conversation with God and that God is always there for us to talk to. Having that conversation, talking with God, she said, brings comfort.

I’ve spent quite a bit of my ordained ministry talking to people in churches about prayer as an ongoing conversation with God and they don’t always get it, perhaps because they are more used to the set prayers that you find in many services. So, to talk to this lady and find that she already understood was hugely encouraging.

The Bible is actually full to overflowing with stories of people who talk to God. Abraham and Moses have arguments with God. Job complains about the unfair things that happen to him in his life. Jesus questions whether going to the cross is the only way to achieve salvation. The Psalmist yells out to God, yells with all his might, yells at the top of his lungs, and then finds that God listens.

That is part of what St Paul was writing about in verses from his letter to the Church at Philippi:


"Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the centre of your life." (Philippians 4. 6 and 7)

He says that instead of letting worry eat us up we can do something positive with our worries by turning them into prayers; by simply starting to talk to God about whatever is going on for us. Whatever is affecting us, bugging us, or getting us down.

When we do that, it doesn’t magically change the situation. It does suddenly make everything right. But what does changes is us and our attitude towards whatever is going on. St Paul says that a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle us down. That, instead of our worries being at the centre of our lives, Christ will displace the worry enabling us to cope and get through. It's wonderful when that happens. It is the miracle of prayer.

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Aretha Franklin - I Say A Little Prayer.