“What is your will that I should do for you?” (Luke 18)
Can it be right to pray for ourselves, or to pray for a specific outcomes for others? When we leave the simplicity of childhood prayers behind, we can come up against problems. Does expecting an answer to prayer feel a bit like magic? And doesn’t God know better than we do, what we, or our friend, needs?
Before we go too far along this path, it is good to remember that Jesus gave his disciples the Lord’s Prayer, which moves from the most universal requests about the name of God, the coming of his kingdom and the fulfilling of his will — to requests about what we need to sustain us – nourishment on every level, forgiveness for the ways in which we constantly offend each other even without knowing, inner strength to withstand our strayings, and the capacity to face evil. How dare we ask for those things? Because somewhere deep inside we know that it is good that we are in the world, and that we need these things if we are going to survive.
As well as giving the clear instruction about the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus answers individual prayers, as in the story of the blind man at the gates of Jericho. What incredible strength must it have taken for the blind man to repeat his request for help in the face of a hostile crowd! But we could imagine that the greatest trial of all comes when he is face to face with Jesus. What inner certainty must be there, for him still to ask for something –for himself!
In reality we may sometimes slip into praying for magic. Each one of us is called to tread a path of discernment: when is my prayer unworthy, and when am I praying out of my deepest being?
We will have the chance to turn to this theme in more depth on Sunday, 25th, when the theme is ‘Praying from the I’. If you would like to prepare for this session, which will have space for conversation as well as presentation, you could live into this week’s gospel reading and the Lord’s Prayer.
– Tom Ravetz
Nataliia Shatna is on annual leave from 1st-31st August.
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Priests of the community: Tom Ravetz and Nataliia Shatna. Contact us on the church email or using the form below.