trypraying

The day has been filled with people.

A range of different people I've been seeing. Mainly by arrangement. And mostly for longer than I'd anticipated. Which meant that everything else I'd tentatively planned to be doing .. well, it never got done at all.

Which only serves to underline that people are a 'right-up-there' priority. Relationships matter. And relationships always take time.

None matters more - and none really merits more time - than relationship with the Lord.

And it's that which the booklet called trypraying. is intended to encourage. (Click here for the booklet as a pdf)

One of the people I was seeing today has been using this booklet through the course of the past seven days: it was great to get the feedback from this week of prayer.

trypraying. is a kind of duffer's guide to prayer, a down-to-earth and unsophisticated manual to help a person pray. For seven days.

Pray for seven days and discover the adventure of a lifetime: getting to know God.

That's what the blurb at the start of the booklet declares.

trypraying. is not magic. As if you somehow unearthed the secret whereby you could get God to do whatever you want. You ask (in just the right way, of course) and abracadabra what you asked for is wonderfully there. Prayer is not magic.

Prayer is relationship.

Prayer is conversation with God. .. You can talk to him about anything.

trypraying. simply seeks to help a person enter that relationship. They give it a go for a week. They open the door of their heart and call out into the gloom - "Is anybody there?"

Will their words just echo round the universe? Or is there someone listening?

And if there's someone listening .. how will you know?

trypraying. starts from the simple premise that there is someone there. The Lord.

It starts from the premise that not only is the Lord close at hand, but he's eager himself for relationship with us all. And that within seven days of our opening the door and starting to speak, that will have become very clear.

There isn't a uniform pattern. It isn't magic. And the Lord is not a machine.

But it happens, all right. And the person who has been using trypraying. throughout these last seven days had an interesting story to tell in this regard.

On the seventh and final day something happened. Something in some ways quite ordinary, in some ways extraordinary too.

Without going into the details it went like this.

A very real, and quite pronounced, temptation to engage in a little theft by not disclosing for payment an article in the basket (the serve-yourself facility at places like Tesco has its attractions this way). This in itself was a most unusual phenomenon, the strength of this temptation for a person who has always shown integrity.

An equally strong conviction, impressed upon the person's heart, that the temptation must be resisted. Must be. More than just the sense that it would be wrong. More compelling than that. An urgency. A necessity. A warning.

The temptation was resisted (the item which was the subject of the temptation was quite a costly thing).

And just as well! Because on leaving the shop the alarm went off, and the person was stopped at the door. The basket was searched. The receipt was required. And the items were all checked off. And, of course, everything there had been paid for.

It was a sobering experience. But a very striking experience, too.

As if at the end of a week of trypraying. the Lord was in a rather tangible way simply saying -

I'm here all right. Listen out for my voice and my promptings. Learn to trust me always. I'll keep you safe. I'll guard you from all harm.

The adventure of a lifetime: getting to know God.

The adventure has well and truly begun now for yet another person.