Category: Uncategorised

Monday

Romans 12.9 “Love must be sincere.”

I learned chunks of Romans by heart as a young Christian, in the King James Version! “Let love be without dissimulation.” Reading the older translation increased my word power as a teenager new to reading the Bible. Dissimulation is deliberate play-acting, pretending something is true when it is not. Paul is saying that in a Christian community there’s no place for pretence. God’s love poured into our hearts is the real thing.  Its authenticating hallmarks are faithfulness that creates trust, costly service to others, and compassion and practical help. Love without dissimulation.

Tuesday

Romans 12.9b “Hate what is evil, cling to what is good.”

Hate is a strong word, but if love is to be genuine, then its flip side is to hate what is evil, to abhor and resist what harms, hurts and diminishes others. Paul is well aware of the many ways sin gets in the way of love, and Christian community can be so easily undermined when love falters. The positive is to cling to what is good. In our thinking, lifestyle and actions to support what is life-giving, to encourage kindness and generosity, to be a persistent voice for good and a vocal opponent of the common undercurrents of jealousy, dislike, gossip and resentment that drain the joy and affection out of Christian fellowship. Cling to what is good, hold on to love.

Wednesday

Romans 12.10 “Be devoted to one another in love as brothers and sisters. Honour one another above yourselves.  

These two imperatives say much the same thing. Mutual affection and honour is love that is emotionally grounded in friendship and respect. What proves love in the Christian community is sincere is the quality of relationships being built. Being devoted to one another means we notice who is not there, we care what happens in each of our lives, we appreciate each other’s gifts, we bear one another’s burdens, we look not only to our own interests, we want to see each other flourish in our relationship with God. We will be there for each other, as God is ever there for us.

Thursday

Romans 12.11 “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord.”

Paul learned the hard way that unrestrained and unexamined zeal can do serious damage to those who get in our way! Our first zeal is to love the God who in Christ revealed what love is – reconciling grace and costly forgiveness. We love because God first loved us. Our spiritual fervour is nothing less than the fire of God’s love igniting everything in us that will burn, the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and overflowing in Spirit-enabled and loving service to others for Jesus’ sake. “Still let me guard, the holy fire / and still stir up Thy gift in me.”

Friday

Romans 12.12 “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer”.

There’s a three point sermon if ever there was one! Joyful hope, patience in the tough times, and faithfulness in prayer; three ways in which we can know our love for God is real and without dissimulation, and be confident that our faith is rooted and grounded in the faithfulness of God. This demands an inner discipline of faith, a heart receptive to God’s Spirit-given grace, grace that is always sufficient and a mind guarded by God’s peace which is beyond our understanding, but no less real for that!

Saturday

Romans 12.13 “Share with God’s people who are in need.”

Sharing is by definition a habit of generosity, a willingness to give what is ours for the benefit of others. ‘Share’ is the English translation of ‘koinoneo’, Paul’s word for fellowship as partnership. In Christian community we are committed to the care of each other, we are all in this following Christ thing together! Make fellowship real by looking after each other, making sure each has daily necessities. Let no one be overlooked, or left to struggle on their own when life is hard. Whatever else pastoral care is, it is a community commitment to each other’s welfare, physical, emotional and spiritual. In that sense too, “Let love be without dissimulation.” Martin Luther once said that property, including money, is fellowship in created things.

Sunday

Romans 12.13b “Practice hospitality.”

Hospitality is both a practice, and a disposition. Hospitality is something we do as an expression of welcome and goodwill to others. In Paul’s world hospitality was an obligation for Jewish people rooted in their own experience of being strangers in Egypt, wanderers in the wilderness, and exiles from their homeland. The community of Christ is to be a place of welcome, inclusion and refuge. It is more than a shake of the hand and an invitation to coffee afterwards. “Welcome and accept one another as Christ has welcomed and accepted you”, is Paul’s spelling out of hospitality as doing to others as God in Christ has done to us. This is no optional afterthought. Paul is telling all Christians to treat others as God has treated them in Christ. To practice hospitality is to be a community of consistent love, open welcome, and generous sharing. 

Monday

James 1.12 “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”

In every life circumstances change, difficult times come, relationships go wrong, and hopes are disappointed. The old wisdom “these things are sent to try us” can seem heartless when someone says that to us. But James has a point. Resilience is built by resistance; character is shaped by all our struggles to make life work; faith and trust in God are strengthened by a determined inner love, enabled by God’s grace. The crown of life is God’s ‘Yes’ to our love, when we have never taken the option of walking away, but have persevered and found God’s grace more than sufficient.

Tuesday

James 1.17 “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

The best translation of what James meant is still the opening verse of the hymn: “Great is Thy faithfulness, O God, my Father; / there is no shadow of turning with Thee. / Thou changest not, the compassions they fail not / as Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.” We live each day beneath the constant generosity of God. As we say of those we have come to trust. “You always get them the same way.” Or as the old KJV says, in God “there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

Wednesday

James 1. 19 “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry…”

Pay attention! Take note! Get your head round this. In three phrases James provides an outline for a TEDS talk on learning to keep our mouths shut! Peace-making, conciliation, negotiation, relation building, community health and safety – they all depend on three things. First, the discipline of listening in order to understand rather than find fault; second, install a good braking system on the urge to talk back, correct, or control the conversation; third, enough self-knowledge to recognise that our anger is seldom righteous anger! James’s words should be in bold print at the top of every day planner and displayed at every supermarket checkout!

Thursday

James 1.20 “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, because anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.”

Anger is a problem. There are times when it is absolutely right to be angry, and when it would be wrong not to be outraged. But that is anger on behalf of others when, for example, we witness injustice or needless suffering. James is talking about anger as that inner aggression that wants to win the argument, to get our own way, or to put someone in their place – which usually means beneath us! The righteous life that God requires is the opposite of self-serving anger. If we want to know what that looks like then think of an upper room, dirty feet, a basin and a towel, and Jesus defusing the anger of disciples who had been arguing about who was the greatest.

Friday

James 1.26 “If anyone considers himself religious, and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.”

Those words could have come straight out of Proverbs, and they have the same concern. Gossip, harmful words, innuendo, wounding sarcasm, lying, angry retorts, broken confidences, the clever take-down – the list is long of the ways that our words undermine trust and poison a community environment. Religion, as James sees it, is demonstrated in the practice of the faith we profess. As followers of Jesus we are called to a discipleship of the mind and heart, – and of the mouth!   

Saturday

James 1.27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:”

Our religion, according to James, is nothing more, nothing less, than our faith being put into practice. We don’t just hear God’s word, we do it. Religion is both our inner piety of prayers and devotional affection and commitment to God, in response to God’s great love towards us in Christ; and our religion is how we behave in the light of God’s great love for us. The mercy and compassion of God has acted in love towards us in the gift of his Son. “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless” will likewise be visible, actual and real in the practice of mercy to others.

Sunday

James 1.27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

Care for the vulnerable, compassion for those who need help; in other words seeing the world through the eyes of Jesus who never, ever, ignored those in distress. Perhaps the worst pollution by the world is allowing our hearts to harden and become complacent about the distress of those who have no power to rescue themselves. Looking after folk who are struggling is of the very essence of Christian love, and love for Christ. “Forasmuch as you did it for one of the least of these…”

God of Grace and Wisdom – If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

We live in a world that is becoming less and less predictable. Give wisdom to those who hold power, and can influence the lives of others for good or ill. And give to each of us wisdom to know and to do what is right. Keep us faithful to the teaching of Jesus about loving our neighbour, trusting our Heavenly Father, and lifting up our heads in hope for the coming of your Kingdom.

God of Grace and Mercy – “Be merciful, just as your Father in Heaven is merciful.”

We live in a world where cruelty is televised, where in places of war, conflict and oppression, mercy is seen as weakness, and where innocent lives are too often dismissed as of no value or consequence. Merciful God, constrain the powers that rage for vengeance, bring an end to suffering and death as the price of our all too human failures to live together without hate and violence. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

God of Grace and Justice – Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing river.

We know that there can be no peace without justice, and that you are a God of faithfulness and without injustice. Those words of your prophet Amos become our prayer as we read the news feeds, fear for the future of our world, worry about the sheer scale of problems humanity faces. By your Spirit who brought creation out of chaos, speak again Let there be light, and push back the darkness that threatens the life of our world and all who call this planet our home.

May the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace as we trust in him, so that we may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Monday

Matthew 22.37: Jesus said: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and the greatest commandment.”

Sometimes we ask a question because we genuinely want to know; other times a question can be a mental body swerve, a way of avoiding the truth that stands in our way. This was Jesus’ reply to a trick question about which is the greatest commandment. Jesus’ answer was like a well-timed rugby tackle, leaving no room for manoeuvre. The first priority of the heart, the magnetic North of the soul, the first focus of the mind, is to love God with all that we are. To love God completely, and serve God first and foremost, is to give God first claim on our worship and obedience.

Tuesday

Matthew 22.39: Jesus said: “And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself.”    

Second only to our love and obedience to God, is our love and service to our neighbour. The parable of the Good Samaritan is all the argument a Christian should ever need to be alert, responsive and compassionate to those we meet on the way who could do with our help. But if we need even more convincing, then Jesus’ astonishing self-revelation in the need of our neighbour is likewise like a well-timed rugby tackle that isn’t fooled by the body swerve: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matt.25.40)

Wednesday

Matthew 22.40: Jesus said: “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

God demands no more than is contained in these two commandments. But the unpacking of them in lives of loving obedience to God and compassionate service to others is the work of a lifetime. “He has shown you, every one of you, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah distilled into that one verse all the commands of the Law and the Prophets for holiness and justice. Jesus concentrated all that teaching down into matters of the heart devoted in love to God, the soul centred in worship, the mind focused on obedience, and the neighbour loved and safe in our presence.

Thursday

Matthew 4.3 Jesus said: ”Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

These words were spoken under pressure. Temptation is that familiar inner process of being torn two ways at once, knowing there is a right and wrong choice of what course of action to take. The greatest commandment to love God with our whole selves means nothing in life matters more than God. Life is God’s gift. We live every day by the enabling grace of God, who calls us as his children to a loving and responsive obedience with all our heart, soul and mind. Seek first God’s rule in your heart and in your daily living; then every other thing will fall into its proper place.

Friday

Matthew 5.13: Jesus said: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?”

Salt can’t lose its saltiness. But it can become adulterated, a mixed economy of salt and accumulated compromises. Jesus was saying two things. First, salt works when it makes a difference, when it is different from what it comes into contact with. The various uses of salt for preserving from corruption, medicinal aid to healing, adding flavour to what is bland, all depend on salt being salt! Second, the credibility of the good news depends on our being Christ-like, telling the Gospel, living lives of such convincing quality that Jesus is obvious and visible in who we are. Salt of the earth.

Saturday

Matthew 5.14: Jesus said: “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.”

Light is an element of the reality we inhabit that enables life, makes visible, pulses with energy and is used to make life liveable. Followers of Jesus are lights that guide and illuminate and encourage life. The light of Christ brings hope, by forgiveness banishes guilt, liberates from fear, and guides those who are lost and confused back to their home in God. And yes, wherever it’s dark, light can’t be hidden. On the contrary, light defies and defeats darkness. Travellers in the darkness, see the city lights, and know where home and safety lies. You, yes you, are the light of the world.

Sunday

Matthew 5. 16: Jesus said: “In the same way, let your light shine before everyone, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

The good news of God’s love revealed in Jesus, demonstrated on the cross, bursting abroad and let loose on the world at the resurrection – that’s the light that shines in and through the Christian’s heart, and as the living centre of the Christian community. This is who we are! Love God, completely; love your neighbour, every time; be the salt and be the difference; shine with the light of Christ out into the world around you. Be the Body of Christ who is the originating Light of the World.

Some years ago, I spent several days on retreat at St Deiniol's Library and Psalm 119 was the main focus of study, prayer, and journal writing. I also set myself an essay, written for no reason other than writing for me is a way of thinking out and thinking through a complex text.

In 22 sections, each devoted to a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and each line beginning with that specified letter, Psalm 119 is a masterpiece of literary precision. It is also a powerful teaching method for what it means to live a life of obedient love and faithful persistence in the service of God and others. The acrostic pattern is a well marked path for the reader, a metaphor the Psalm uses throughout for the life of loving obedience to God.

When I'm out walking, I take photographs of paths. Often they remind me of this Psalm, and one of its key verses: "Your word is a lamp for my feet, and a light to my path." (Psalm 119.105) This particular photo could be a visual exegesis of that verse!

Monday

Psalm 3.1-2 “O Lord, how many are my foes. How many rise up against me! Many are saying of me, ‘God will not deliver him!’”

In my teens I used to work beside one of the most negative folk I’ve ever known. No cloud ever had a silver lining! One work colleague said, “Aye everything in his favour’s against him!” But the truth is, sometimes in all of our lives there come times when there’s too much coming at us at the same time. This Psalm was written by someone who felt overwhelmed, and there were no silver linings. So he complained to God, which is exactly the right thing to do! When everything seems to be conspiring against us, the first response of faith is to remember God is for us.

Tuesday

Psalm 3.3 “But you are a shield around me, O Lord; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head.”

Part of the experience of feeling down is the body language, a head-hanging lethargy. Time and again the Psalm poet gives the bad news, then the counter argument – “But…” Yes there is much that gets us down, but God is a shield around us. Yes we might feel like hanging our heads in defeat, but God gives the energy and strength to lift up our heads and look at the world again, this time through the eyes of faith that God is to be trusted. God’s glory is most clearly shown when his grace is made perfect in our weakness, and we hold across heart and mind the shield of faith.

Wednesday

Psalm 3.4 “For the Lord I cry aloud, and he answers me from his holy hill.”

Prayer is not always about decorum, politely asking for God’s blessing. Nor are reverence and deference the most important inner attitudes in prayer. The psalm poet is shouting, pleading, arguing, with persistence and an intense need to be heard. When much is going wrong, and everything seems against us, there is an important place for honestly telling God how desperate we are. The prayer of the troubled is not an attempt to minimise our difficulties, or talk ourselves into acceptance. Prayer is a forceful cry for help, believing we are heard by God who is never so far away he does not hear, or will not answer. “I cry aloud, and he answers.”

Thursday

Psalm 3.5 “I lie down and sleep; I wake again because the Lord sustains me.”

We all need a sound theology of sleep, as well as a sound sleep! Anxiety, life under pressure, too much going on in our head, the long build-up of stress; we’ve all known the churning misery of sleepless nights. It’s as if we don’t trust ourselves to let go, and risk loss of control by falling asleep! Yet every day we wake up we do so by the sustaining grace of God who gives us life in the first place. There is profound theology in the vivid memory of disciples thrown about in the boat during the dangerous squall on the Sea of Galilee, and “Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion.”   

Friday

Psalm 3.6 “I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side.” 

This isn’t empty bravado. The Psalm poet is a realist, it’s just that his view of reality includes God. Again, we’ve all been in that place when we feel hemmed in, surrounded by more than we can deal with. Those words, “I will not fear”, are spoken in defiance of the worst the world can do. We have sung these words often enough! ““The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, / I will not, I will not desert to his foes; / That soul, though all hell should endeavour to shake, / I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake!” And God says, “That’s a promise!”

Saturday

Psalm 3.7 “Arise, O Lord! Deliver me, O my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked.”

Exclamation marks signify theology with a loud voice, faith with the volume turned up. There is both confidence and desperation in the words. The Psalm poet knows ‘how many are my foes’, and ‘the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side.” This Psalm is for those times when we’ve run out of options, ideas, energy yet the hard stuff keeps coming. The strong language of broken jaws and teeth is hardly what we would call devotional prose! It is fighting talk, but it is God who is asked to act, to deliver, to enable life to go on, to lift up our heads, to be a shield around us. Christians are not exempt from storms of circumstance, whether on the Sea of Galilee or in the life that is ours. Sometimes our prayers need exclamation marks! 

Sunday

Psalm 3.8 “From the Lord comes deliverance. May your blessing be on your people.”

In a self-help culture, awash with exaggerated positivity about what our life can be like if we just dream it, or go for it, people of faith live to an alternative worldview. “From the Lord comes deliverance.” It simply isn’t true that all the answers lie inside us, or that all problems can be solved by our determination, or mind-set. Blessing, when it comes, is gift. Sure, it requires our faithfulness, trust, obedience, and it may well cost us. But the Lord is at work in our lives, always and everywhere. Even the tough times and hard miles. He is our shield, bestows glory, and lifts up our head.

The Scottish word 'dreich' is characteristically expressive, and said in a slow Scottish accent conveys quite a lot of its meaning. A 'dreich' day is a day that is grey, damp, lacking in sunlight, cold, and not likely to do much to lift the spirits. It's usually used to describe the weather, but that same word with its cluster of associated downer words, accurately sums up our mood when our inner climate is grey, sunless and lacking life and energy.

The Psalm-poet found his own way of describing the soul exposed to experiences that have the same dampening effects on the spirit. "Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?" (Psalm 42.5) The gift that the Psalm poet gives to his readers is permission; yes, he says, it's OK to feel down, let down, overshadowed by anxiety, undermined by sadness. While the usual expectation in prayer is to thank and praise God, we have permission to come before God with our complaints, our burdens, and our emotional life laid low by whatever experiences deflate and deplete us. 

The above photograph was taken on a dreich day in Drum Castle gardens. The climate that day mirrored exactly the semantic range of 'dreich'! The grey filter of drizzle, low visibility and muted sounds, cold and damp, and no chance of any sunlight any time soon. Then the robin began to sing. In the midst of greyness, this red-breasted singer was defying the elements with an elemental song of its own. Sometimes a sacrament just happens. You don't plan it; there is no liturgy; no time to rehearse it, or prepare for its coming. It just happens. It is a gift event, a moment of revelation when colour and sound defy and push back the greyness. 

Like all the rest of us, the Psalm poet had his share of dreich days, enough of them to know that they are not forever, and even when they last, they needn't be the only mood setter in town! He had his own song: "Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him, my Saviour and my God!" On a dreich day, this wee robin sat up there singing into the greyness, a sacrament of song, a parable about the power of praise to push back the dreichness!   

Now and again I have to remind myself that when Paul made a list of the fruits of the Spirit, he wasn't closing the door on other suggestions. It's also true that the nine fruits of the Spirit are not a varied list but a cluster; they are the fruit, singular and collective, of the Spirit's work of transforming and conforming each Christian to the image of Christ. Paul's carefully compiled list is intended as a counter-balance and contrast to the 'works of the flesh' as given in Galatians 5. That long list is one mean catalogue of so much that makes human behaviour evil, wicked, and cruel. In contrast to human nature at its unaided worst, there is the grace-enabled fruit of the Spirit:

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."

The fruit of the Spirit doesn't grow by gritted teeth, self-denial, and the moral hard work of self-help virtue. Fruit, including spiritual fruit, is the natural outcome of the life of the Spirit expressed in the character and freedom of the children of God. The fruit of the Spirit is evidence of grace, and it grows by the constant work of cultivation, pruning, nourishment and irrigation which are the horticultural equivalents of the Spirit at work in producing the fruit of Christlikeness in our souls.

But still, whether or not Paul was being exhaustive in the list of fruit as evidence, there is a case for at least one other characteristic fruit of the heart and mind touched and transformed by grace, led and nurtured by the Holy Spirit. In Romans 5.1-5 Paul reflects on the genealogy of hope – where it comes from, what it does, what sustains it. It's worth following the whole thought process:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

If the fruit of the Spirit is evidence of the work of God in our lives by the Spirit, then hope that arises from suffering, perseverance and character formation is likewise transformative. Hope is not unthinking optimism, worked-up positive thinking, or denial on steroids. Hope is a way of looking at the world through redeemed eyes, with a clear sight of the cross and its meaning, the resurrection and its effects, and a steady gaze at the glory of God in Jesus Christ. 

No wonder Paul nearer the end of the letter to those Christians at Rome put all this into a prayer: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." (Rom. 15.13) Hope is a fundamental shift in our worldview; Christians are called to live out a theology of hope, founded on God's love, and expressed in a faith that looks backward with gratitude and forward and outward at a world where the glory of God has been revealed in Christ, and in which the glory of God will be consummated in the new creation and fullness of redemption in Christ. 

This kind of thinking is both fruit and gift. Indeed the fruit of the Spirit grows in us because, "God's love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." So when Paul prays to the God of hope, that those Roman Christians in all the ups and downs of their lives in the imperial city may be filled with joy and peace as they trust in God, and that they may overflow with hope, his prayer falls upon our own times with the same extravagant confidence in God. 

These are not easy times we are living in. Much that seemed secure, dependable and stabilising has been shaken. So have we. How do we stay hopeful and resilient in such fluctuating times? What inner attitudes and responses best equip us to live faithfully at a time when our faith in the status quo is decidedly undermined by events? Perhaps a regular reading and re-appropriation of these two texts will give us our bearings, and remind us whose we are, and the realities which undergird our faith. To overflow with hope, in a culture of denial or despair, is to 'shine like stars in a dark universe', as Paul put it to the Philippian believers.

The fruit of the Spirit is…hope, and hope is the echo in our hearts of the God of hope who has come to us in Jesus Christ, the revelation of the glory of God.

The fruit of the Spirit is hope, and hope does not disappoint because God has poured his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, God's gift to us.  

Monday

Luke 11.1 “One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

Details matter. Jesus regularly prayed “in a certain place”, and the disciples knew where to find him. Part of the training of the disciples was regular exposure to Jesus’ way of praying. Prayer is a habit of the heart turned towards God. Prayer is also a turning from our immediate concerns towards our heavenly Father, in trust, in praise and in love. “When he finished…” The disciples knew better than to interrupt the communion between Jesus and his Father. They show reverence for the focused intimacy of such prayer, one of the key lessons in learning to pray. God comes first!

Tuesday

Luke 11.1 “Lord teach us to pray.”

Twenty years ago a book was published titled Christian Prayer for Dummies. It was part of a long series of books introducing everything from gardening to neuroscience. Yes prayer can be taught. But leaving aside even the most helpful books on prayer, it remains true that prayer is first and foremost a relationship with God. What the disciples saw and heard when Jesus prayed was the exchange of loving trust and enabling grace between Jesus and the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Yes, there are spiritual disciplines which help. But prayer is first a loving relationship.

Wednesday

Psalm 17.6 “I call on you, O God, for you will answer me; give ear to me, and hear my prayer.”

The Book of Psalms is the prayer book Jesus knew best. There too, prayer takes place as communication within a relationship of love, trust and praise; but because life and our own hearts often go wrong, prayer is also confession, repentance and the cry for forgiveness. In other words, like all our deepest relationships, prayer depends on trust, faithfulness, costly love, and mutual commitment. These make this relationship real, rich and resilient enough to cope with whatever circumstances put a strain on that same relationship. The confidence of the Psalm poet is in God. Prayer isn’t a relationship of equals. God’s hand is stronger than ours, and his patience longer.

Thursday

Psalm 17.7 “Show the wonder of your great love, you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes.”

God’s answer is often simply to draw us into a deeper experience of his great love. No refuge is safer. Christian prayer takes place, no matter where we are, in that place made safe by God’s great love revealed on the cross, and declared with power in the resurrection. I told you God’s hand is stronger! Paul’s take on what it means to take refuge from all our foes is that long chain of disclaimers that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom 8.38-39 is the eternal guarantee that our prayers are heard, and we are held in God’s great love!

Friday

Psalm 17.8 “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.”

When I trained for a while as an engineer one of the first lessons loudly hammered into a teenage brain too dismissive of risk was, “Wear your goggles!” The image of God as eye-protector is unusual and memorable. God protects that which is precious and irreplaceable. God is also likened to a protective mother hen, an image from which a later paraphrase gave us the prayer, “O spread thy covering wings around, till all our wanderings cease.” Prayer presupposes God’s protective presence. 

Saturday

Ephesians 6.18a “Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.”

Paul loved the word ‘all’! No half measures, “all occasions”, not just when you feel like it. Yes prayer can be taught, and learned; and yes practice makes perfect so long as we realise perfect refers to improvement, growth, maturity, the wisdom of experience. But the energy and vitality of prayer is generated by the Holy Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God. We pray to our heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus, urged and sustained by the communion of the Spirit of God. In that sense we are always being taught how to pray, and our prayers, from the most articulate and satisfying to the most stammering and perplexing, are drawn into the eternal triune love of God where they and our hearts are sifted, and safe.

Sunday

Ephesians 6.18a “Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.”

That word ‘all’ again! Every relationship depends on communication, and our deepest relationships are richly textured by years of conversations. All kinds of conversations – about our hopes and achievements, our blessings and complaints, about other people and ourselves, about the trivial and the life-changing. Paul is urging that our prayers should reflect that same rich texture of a friendship in which we are open, free to speak, confident in being heard, willing to listen, able to laugh or to cry, and without embarrassment. To pray in the Spirit is precisely to speak in the freedom of God’s children, in God’s presence, about anything, and everything.