Persistence in Prayer

A sermon preached in St. Columba's on Sunday 17th October 2010 at 1030 Morning prayer - Based on the text of Luke 18:1-8 The Persistent widow

I wonder if you have ever had to keep going at something ... thinking about it day in, day out, pehaps getting others around to help. Perhaps a project, perhaps an essay, perhaps a gardening idea, perhaps it was trying to get money back from a company ... whatever it may have been.

It takes a lot keep going when others may be asking ... are you wise?, or sure it would be much easier to give up.

This week on our news headlines we have seen what happens when people refuse to give up, when people people are persistent in their hopes and dreams, when others are persistent in their work.

The Chilean miners were this week brought out of the mine.

The word persist according to the oxford english dictionary is a verb with the meaning ... continue in an opinion or course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition:

Our gospel reading this morning speaks of the persistence needed in prayer, to keep at it in spite of difficulty or opposition

At our Family communion this morning I brought along a wind-up toy and said that there are times when we pray when things are difficult, when troubles come then people do pray but in the ordinary times of life do we come before God in prayer - we don’t seem to have the energy, the time or the inclination, or perhaps we just do not know what to pray for.

In the ordinary-ness of life how can we be persistent in prayer?

To answer that question we need return to ask two related questions

Firstly Why should we pray? and then How should we pray?

Why?

If we catch the importance of something then we are more likely to integrate it into our everyday life. For example if in consultation with the doctor we have a discussion about fatty foods we are more likely not to order the belly busting fry when we next go to our favorite restaurant, or if we are told that we need to reach a certain fitness level we are more likely to make our daily walk, gym session a priority.

Prayer is a conversation with God, it is setting time aside as a priority, saying your relationship with him is of importance to you.

That relationship is key to who we are as Christians as it cuts to the core of life and indeed eternity itself. Prayer brings us into the seat of the king of kings and the Lord of Lords.

How should we pray?

There are many, many ways people have found helpful. In today’s world we know that we are faced with many choices. Go into a coffee shop - size, blend, latte, cappuccino, syrups etc - all of us are getting used to having things our own way.

There are many, many different ways to pray - formally, informally, walking, over coffee, at the side of the bed, in bed, at the office, in the car all of us. wherever it may be. Writting your prayers in a journal wherever - with music on, in silence, in church, at home, up a mountain, by a river

All of us can pray

"One prayer routine that is balanced and easy to remember is found in the word ACTS, an acrostic whose 4 letters stand for adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication.

We can pray scripture - the psalms are a place where prayers have been written down.

When we look around a church, it may seem that every person here finds prayer easy or indeed second nature - but actually from chatting to people, if we are honest many of us, and I include myself in this - praying is a struggle.

We struggle with it for various reasons:

• It takes time
• We often don’t see the results of our prayers
• We often don’t know what to pray in a certain circumstance
• We wonder about the effects that our prayer has

These are indeed things we do struggle with but this is where the persistance needs to come in. We need to catch a vision of the richness of prayer, we need to then integrate prayer into our lives. Setting time aside each day to pray also can have other effects as well

"Prayerless people cut themselves off from God's peace and from his prevailing power, and a common result is that they feel overwhelmed, overrun, beaten down, pushed around, and defeated by a world operating with a take-no-prisoners approach."

Bill Hybels, Too Busy Not To Pray

Taking those few minutes out of our busy schedule helps remind ourselves who we are and also the importance of our faith in God.

There are many, many ways to structure our prayer to God each day. One ancient way which we can persevere in prayer - is with the daily office - Take a look at the front page of the prayer book ... a daily prayer structure ... richness in prayer.

It is available on the internet... check out the worship section of the church of ireland website!

We are called to make prayer a priority - In our parish there are loads of things you can pray for - take a look through the parish magazine - pray for the leaders of the organisations, pray for your neighbourhoods, pray for police

Many many things to pray for - lift one of the sheets at the back of church with ideas which were created orginally for children but which can be easily adapted for adults.

It then gets to a stage when we just need to sit down and pray - having that balance of ACTS helps greatly in our prayers.

In our parish Bible study on wednesday evening I recalled how recently I was at a funeral of a friends father who died in his 90’s - all his sons and daughters got up to pay tribute to him - one of the things they said that spoke volumes about what he believed was that every day he got down on his knees and prayed for each of them as they were growing up. They also knew that as they got older wherever in the world the kids went - that they had a father at home who was praying for them.

It got me thinking - is my habit of prayer so in-ground that I am persevering in prayer for people here in the parish, for my family, for my friends, for parishioners, for those who I promised to pray for.

Now there is a challenge in all of this - this week how are you & I going to pause and pray for ourselves and for others in the busy-ness of work and family life?