Are you really praying?

If you only pray by sending off little messages to God when you are in the middle of something else then you are missing out. If you really want to pray then you need to be spending some quality time with God. You need to find some time when you can be quiet and spend time just being with God.

I know that for some of us this is very difficult. Those of you with a young family will know that it is incredibly hard to find any time to do anything. Young children are very demanding and you are on the go all the time, babies in particular make finding time along almost impossible.

You know just because something is almost impossible doesn’t mean that it is not worth doing. Most of us, if we are pressed, could find some time if we really wanted to.

If you knew that if you made a 15 minute phone call you would get a million pounds (read dollars or whatever) then you would find the time to even if it was nearly impossible.

So how much is that time with God worth to you? This is where the problems arise.

I often hear people complaining that God doesn’t listen to them or they never hear God speak. This is often down to not listening. You can’t expect, in any relationship, to get a clear message from someone you only ever listen to about once a month. For one thing you have to learn to hear the voice of God which comes in many different forms. You can’t listen just occasionally and expect to understand what God is saying. It’s not that God is trying to hide away its simply that the rest of life gets in the way.

So let me encourage you to find a time (first thing in the morning or last thing at night maybe?). If you go to bed at 11pm then either go at 10:45pm and spend 15 minutes before you go to sleep with God or turn off the TV at 11 and go to bed at 11:15pm. You can work out what to do in the morning for yourself.

If you want to hear God you have to give Him time to speak.

When do you pray?

In an effort to get people praying the church has traditionally encouraged people to pray at certain times. Personally I like to pray in the morning before the work day begins. However it’s also good to pray in the evenings because it gives you a chance to ask for forgiveness and for peace through the night. Even better to do both.

However there are no set rules about when to pray other than that it is a good idea to pray but the rest is left pretty much up to us.

I love the bit in the gospels (see Luke 11) when the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray. Jesus then gives them a formulae they can use (e.g. the Lords Prayer). Of course in other places they learn important things about prayer as well but here is an example of Jesus’ teaching. He doesn’t make it complicated, he doesn’t give them set times to do it, he doesn’t even expand on the Lord’s Prayer with a whole lot of commentary.If you sincerely pray the Lords prayer every day it will transform your prayer life. I did this – only praying the Lord’s prayer – for a month and I was amazed at how much deeper my prayer life became. I thought at the time I was doing pretty well anyway.

So when do you pray and how do you do it? Please leave a comment so others can benefit.

Death of my friend

Everyone has to face, at some time or another, the death of someone they once knew and loved. It can be hard to come to terms with, especially for those without any faith in God. However it is especially hard when that person took their own life. There must inevitably be questions about how it might have been prevented, and that perhaps you were the one who could have prevented it.

Of course such thinking helps no one. If we all went through life beating ourselves up because we missed an opportunity to help someone then we would all be pretty depressed. But then again perhaps we should feel bad about such missed opportunities and admit them to God so we can say sorry and find forgiveness.

Recently I learned of a friend from my past who has taken his own life. I don’t know the details, I doubt that I ever will know everything. I feel sad that whilst I had lost touch with him somewhere along the line, in the end I was not there to help.

But you know Jesus faced something similar in his own life. Not a suicide but the death of someone close to him, a death which he could have prevented. A friend of his called Lazarus. Lazarus fell ill and Jesus knew about it. Being Jesus he had the power to stop his friend from dying but instead deliberately didn’t go to help so he could use this situation for something greater.

After his friend died he went to see the family, who are distraught. Why didn’t Jesus save him? Then comes one of the most moving of the verses of the Bible. The two words, “Jesus wept”.

You can find this story in the Gospel of John Chapter 11.

Why did Jesus cry? Was it for his friend? Maybe. Was it for the people who suffered as a result of that death? Quite likely. Whatever the reason it shows us that Jesus, God, is human. Jesus knows about grief firsthand. He is not some spectator sitting on a cloud smiling at us when we get something right or wagging a finger when we get it wrong, he is one of us.

Then Jesus raises Lazarus and in one spectacular event shows us that he can change even death itself.

When someone we love dies, especially when that loved one ends their own life, it is important that we understand our own power to change death. We can’t raise people from the dead (at least this is not an every day experience) but we can change our world so that out of death can come life.

We change what we can, maybe all we can really change is ourselves, so that the world is a better place in memory of those who have passed on.

At the end of Saving Private Ryan there is a moving moment when Private Ryan visits the grave of the man who saved his life. He is trying to say that he hopes what he has done has earned the death that gave him life. He hasn’t cured cancer or ended all wars but he has done his best to live a good life and bring up a good family. Maybe this is all we can do, but at least in this way we can demonstrate that the lives we once loved meant something.

So long Phil, it was a pleasure knowing you, may God take away the pain you have felt, wipe the tears from your eyes, and may you find peace at last in paradise.

Preoccupied with self

I was reading a blog entry the other day about someone who was getting very angry at the way people in the “New Age” movement are too self centered. They were trying to get people to care more for others. It all sounded very Christian to me, although it came from someone in the New Age movement.

Now preoccupation is not an exclusive club for New Agers only. It is too easy as a Christian to become preoccupied with your own faith and to forget about the needs of others. Jesus never called anyone to a life of preoccupation with their relationship with God. God calls us to be concerned with the world as well as with Him (Him first of course).

Jesus said that the first commandment is to love God and others as yourself. So we can love ourselves (in fact we should) and we should love others just as much, and of course we should love God. So no room for self preoccupation there.

I’ve often heard Christians argue that this is one of the reasons to belong to a church. It stops you becomming too self centered. I agree – a bit. You see belonging to a church doesn’t save you from preoccupation. Even insitutions can be preoccupied with themselves. I’ve come across plenty of churches that have a preoccupation with themselves.

I had a motto at College that everyone still remembers me for: “don’t take yourselves too seriously”. This ought to be every Christians motto as well. Don’t get preoccupied with self.