prayer

Let me say a bit about prayer. I'll not say it all - the rest will perhaps have to wait 'til another day. But we were thinking a bit about prayer last night at our fortnightly leadership meeting. And few things are more important.

Prayer is perhaps the most open acknowledgement we make that the work is the Lord's.

"Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord," the people of God were sometimes told (see, for instance, Exodus 14.13).

Prayer is our standing still. Prayer is our affirming that 'salvation' is of the Lord. Prayer declares that unless the Lord does the thing (whatever that thing may be), it won't get done at all.

Prayer is our standing back and putting the spotlight on God. Prayer is our learning to see for ourselves just what the Lord can do.

Prayer hands the lead role to God.

It isn't a ritual by which we earn some brownie points. It isn't some magic formula by which we get things done.

It's a simple, humbling exercise in hands-off ministry.

We don't take all that easily to such prayer. We're hands-on people in a hands-on sort of world. We like to be involved. We usually are involved. Very involved. Way too involved.

And as a result we're busy. Often too busy by far to give much more than a pious passing nod to this exercise of prayer.

We often don't dare to stand off and stand back. We fear that just maybe the whole thing will somehow collapse. We like to feel important, needed. We like to think the whole thing might just fall apart if we dared to take a hands-off sort of line and took the time to pray.

Whatever the 'thing' might be. Raising a family (a round-the-clock and non-stop, noble enterprise): or running a church (a hugely multi-faceted sort of ministry, and surely, yes, another noble enterprise): or whatever the 'thing' might be.

Prayer is a conscious, counter-cultural step we take, whereby we choose, in the face of the rushing demands of the river of modern life, to stand entirely still, remove our hands, and acknowledge that it is by the Lord in his grace that the 'thing' will alone be done.

I choose to start and end my day in prayer. A deliberate, defiant act.

It's tempting to get stuck in, there is always so much to do. The energy involved in refusing all those instincts of my ego which insist I do the work - the energy involved is often almost physical.

It's a conscious, deliberate statement and step of faith when I start the day in prayer.

It is the counter-intuitive step of a 'hands-on' man in adopting a 'hands-off' pose. A man who loves to be busy choosing instead to be still.

It's neither natural nor easy. It's a bold and audacious line to take in a busy and often fairly unforgiving world.

It runs the risk of real humiliation. It requires of us a radical humility.

But it's where things always start. Always.