Weekly Reflection – The Power of Prayer

31 January 2025

A couple of weeks ago late one evening our next-door neighbour’s dog started barking. It barked and barked until I was about to get out of bed and then it stopped. ‘Lord’ I said, in one of my little arrow prayers to which one is a bit ashamed to admit … ‘please don’t let it start barking again’. It didn’t! I had a lovely night’s sleep. Had the Lord answered my prayer? Actually … no. I went to sleep quickly, but apparently the dog started again and kept my son awake till midnight. I could argue that God helped me sleep … despite the dog … but that doesn’t show much divine consideration for my son …

There are … however … lots of things which really do seem good to pray for; they seem to be the sort of thing God would like me to ask for – ending war for instance… or praying for a cure for terminal illnesses. Can I ask for that? Well Jesus does tell us to do just that “Ask and you will receive…your father in heaven gives good things to those who ask for them”. God does expect us to ask for things we want for ourselves and for other people… but there are two things of which we must be aware in our asking. First… it is not our faith which achieves the miracle; it is God. I can’t force God to act no matter how much I shout… pout… or scream. It is God who decides; we can only ask.

The second thing is that we don’t actually know what is best. It may seem obvious to us what is best, but God sees deeper than we do.

One trouble … though … with this line of interpretation is that it can lead to a kind of fatalism: “God knows best. Who are we to question his judgement?” Or worse: “Everything is in the hands of God. We don’t need to worry”.

God doesn’t take away worry and he does expect us to pray. He does expect us to act in every way we can to bring about a better world. Yet he also wants us to know we are not on our own. He is there. As Jesus said in John’s gospel: “My father works, and I work too”. It’s not all up to us.

Prayer is the heartbeat of the church, its rhythm and punctuation set the foundation of our Christian faith. Prayer has power.

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