prayer

A guy named Ole Hallesby once wrote a book on prayer called .. well, simply, and without a lot of originality, "Prayer."

It doesn't need a flashy title. It's the content which is its selling point.

It's not a long book, but it's a hugely helpful book. And if you ever can get your hands on a copy, pay some good money to do so. It's worth it.

Simple, clear, godly, uplifting. The sort of thing that'll stir you to get down on your knees (at least metaphorically) and pray with growing confidence.

We're having to learn the importance of prayer all over again these days.

Crying out to God in the face of our need and in the face of the mess that we're in. I was at a meeting last night which highlighted just how deep is the pit that we're in.

I won't go into the details. But it was pretty depressing stuff. It felt a bit like being in a boat which was holed in a number of places: every time we patch up a hole there are three other holes through which the water is pouring.

A kind of sinking feeling.

God's people have been there before. The Bible's full of times like that. Which provides at least some minor measure of comfort.

Anyway. Back to Hallesby and his book on prayer.

It's a good long time since I've read that book but during its course he likens prayer to the boring of holes in the rockface into which the sticks of dynamite are pushed.

Prayer is boring.

He doesn't actually say just that, but I recall, the first time I read the book, smiling at that three-word simple summary of what the guy was saying.

The explosion of the dynamite which shatters the huge, hard face of solid, resistant rock - that, he says, is the work of the Holy Spirit. The dynamite of God.

Everyone wants to be around for that! It's exciting, dramatic, a moment not to be missed.

But before it ever happens there's the 'boring' work of prayer. Painstakingly slow, and wearisome, too - the business of boring those holes in the rock face where the sticks of dynamite then can be carefully placed.

That's never so attractive. Hardly that exciting.

But absolutely basic.

So we're doing a lot of praying in these days. Boring.

There's a solid, stony rockface of ungodliness confronting us, and it will not shift at all without the huge, explosive power of the Spirit of the living God.

We're boring the holes into which can be pushed the sticks of the Spirit's dynamite.

Warning. This is not a safe place to be.