Dear All,

Once there was a man who decided to build a bridge. He thought it would be an easy job, just laying some wood over the river, but he decided to buy a book about it to be on the safe side. The book was called ‘The Laws of Practical Bridge Building’ and it was full of helpful pictures and diagrams. But the trouble was that the man just found it too boring. He just wanted to get on with building the bridge and didn’t want to read the book. So he threw it away after reading ten pages, and got busy with laying the wood over the river. The next day when he got up all the wood had washed away. But did the man blame himself for being so stupid? No, he blamed the book for giving him bad advice! He also decided that he would never build another bridge again.

I’m sure that’s a story that we can all relate to. We start a project with the best of intentions but soon find that the demands it places on us are too much. So we call it a day before really getting started. That’s been true of me in many areas of my life. I’ve closed off many opportunities that seemed to be a good idea at the time.

There’s a similar temptation to want to throw in the towel with prayer. We think that it seems simple enough, just a case of asking God for what we want and then waiting to see what happens. But when nothing seems to happen we quickly give up. We conclude that it’s all a waste of time or maybe God doesn’t exist in the first place. But maybe when we do that
we’re a bit like that man with his book of practical bridge building. Could it be that in our haste for results we’re skipping the rules that make prayer more effective?

The fact of the matter is that prayer is a discipline which requires care and attention. It’s something of an art that can take a lifetime to perfect. Lots of books have been written about it, many of which seem very daunting. But the good news is that help is at hand.

That good news is that Jesus is willing to help us. You know, a lot of the time the disciples of Jesus got things wrong. They often struggled to understand what he was on about. But one day one of them got something very right. He saw Jesus praying and said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.’ And really that’s the best thing that any of us can do: ask Jesus, the master of prayer to teach us to pray.

Jesus gives us the Lord’s Prayer to help us.

He says, ‘Father, hallowed be your name’. What that means is let’s make God name holy throughout the world.

Next he says, ‘Your Kingdom come.’ That means let’s make this Kingdom of the Earth like God’s Kingdom of Heaven. People ask where heaven is. The answer is that it’s where God’s will is done, and it can be on earth as well as heaven.

Next we’re told to ask each day for our daily bread. That’s a great prayer because it helps us to see that everyday God provides for us. It opens our eyes to his daily goodness towards us. It doesn’t have to be about food. It’s about whatever feeds us or nourishes us, physically or spiritually.

And then we ask for forgiveness of our sins, on the condition that we forgive others. Again, that’s a great prayer because so many of us are weighed down by the resentment we hold towards others. But if God can help us to forgive them we will know his peace and liberation.

And finally we ask for God’s protection: ‘Do not bring us to the time of trial.’ Deliver us from evil.

If we can say this prayer every day and mean it, life will change for us. We’ll have our eyes open to the presence of God in the world and be better attuned to understand his will for us.

But what about those days when we feel that we cannot pray, when life is so dark that we don’t feel we can say or pray anything?

Well, again, help is at hand. Even then Jesus is the master of prayer and when we feel we can’t pray he’ll do the praying for us. He is, as the Bible tells us, our great high priest who ever lives to intercede for us. So we can hand it over to him.

Lord, teach us to pray, just as you taught your disciples.

Your friend and vicar, David.