Daily Bread

Bless our God, O you peoples;
make the voice of his praise to be heard,
Who holds our souls in life
and suffers not our feet to slip.
Come and listen, all you who fear God,
and I will tell you what he has done for my soul.
I called out to him with my mouth
and his praise was on my tongue.
If I had nursed evil in my heart,
the Lord would not have heard me,
But in truth God has heard me;
he has heeded the voice of my prayer.
Blessed be God, who has not rejected my prayer,
nor withheld his loving mercy from me.

If I'm honest, I struggle with some aspects of prayer. I'm fine with the idea and practice of talking to God, but there seems to be a disconnect between my prayers of petition — asking for stuff — and the results.

Most of my prayers of petition revolve around alleviating pain and suffering — for others or myself. For example, I pray for physical or mental healing, comfort for those grieving, and wholeness for those who are experiencing brokenness.

The truth is that, even though I pray (and I have no doubt that God hears) often my prayers go 'unanswered'. So what is the point in praying?

Prayer is aligning oneself with God's will, and I know God longs for there to be healing, comfort, and wholeness for others and myself. If I feel it just a little, God feels it a thousandfold. And so, prayers of petition become expressions of the very mind of God.

As the Holy Spirit lives in me, and I see the world with God's eyes, so my voice gives expression to God's heart. And for this reason, if I did not pray, I would be muting or stifling an outward expression of the God who lives in me.

As each of us seek to be Jesus in the world — God's hands and feet — we also seek to be God's voice, and this is why we must never stop praying.

Prayer is not the recital of incantations to obtain miraculous results, as if the exact wording or phrasing matters — but the invitation for heaven and earth to collide in the present.

Prayer is giving voice to God's presence and this is why prayer itself is such a great comfort. Just because pain and suffering continues in the world does not mean that we stop doing all we can to alleviate that pain and suffering, and this also means we must never stop praying.

As someone once reminded me, how would the world be if no-one prayed? And that thought leaves me shuddering.

Holy God
May I never stop praying
for healing, comfort, and wholeness,
and holding before you those
who experience pain and suffering.
Help me to see the world as you see it,
and give voice to the longings of your heart.
May your justice, peace, grace, and mercy
reign in all the earth
Now and forever