Last weekend Ardmore Presbyterian Church had its first annual spiritual retreat. Around sixty adults and children came to learn and discuss our life in prayer. I personally would like to thank those who worked so hard to make the weekend such a great success. It was a wonderful beginning to our life together.Our speaker, Bob Allums, brought several lessons over the weekend, but for me, the greatest was the invitation to keep praying. Too often our prayer lives wait for perfect conditions. We wait for the right time and the right settings for prayer. We wait for the right words and the right feelings. There is nothing wrong with trying to enrich our prayer life, but when our patterns and plans silence us, we get prayer wrong.
We postpone and delay prayer for a variety of reasons. Sometimes we fail to pray because we are disappointed in ourselves. Perhaps, we are overwhelmed with our own mistakes or sins. We promise that we will come back to God when we finally work out all those problems. At other times, we are disappointed in God. Perhaps, God appears capricious or even cruel. We stop the prayers because we hurt so much. In doing so, we cut off one of our best means of reconciliation.
In Jesus Christ, we have been adopted into God's family. We are the children of God, and God desires for us to share everything with him. I am told that in ancient times, sailors would tie themselves to the mast of their ships as they entered a storm. To survive, they had to hold tightly to the security of the boat. In prayer, we need to hold onto God just as securely. We need not to be afraid of our anger and shame. We can bring our doubts and mangled words before God. In fact, he can use those very encounters to shape us into the people he desires.
Keep praying.
Grace & Peace,
James
