When I didn’t want to pray

Last week at college we had week of prayer to pray for the mission teams that we would all participate in the following week.  This meant that we prayed more than usual in our morning chapel times and chaplaincy groups, usually in small groups rather than being lead from the front.  

At some point in the week I suddenly felt exhausted from praying.  I didn't want to pray anymore, I was tired of praying and it had tired me out.  

I was shy of admitting this here.  After all, I'm a Bible college student, I've chosen to study my faith full time, shouldn't I love praying?  Shouldn't I be good at it by now?  I shouldn't be feeling like I don't want to do it.  

But in case there is even just one other person out there who feels the same way as me sometimes, I thought I should share this.  And I want to be honest here not just about the good things, but the struggles too.  

I know I can come up with a number of reasons to explain away why I was tired of praying.  I'm an introvert and praying in groups for 20-30 minutes each day with people I don't necessarily know well, if at all, is emotionally taxing.  I'm also shy about talking in groups so often praying out loud is a push out of my comfort zone.  Then there's the fact that you have to reword and add-lib on the fly because simply reading out the prayer point doesn't quite feel like I'm praying sincerely (even though that's a totally legitimate way to pray, particularly with the detailed points).  

But honestly, I don't want to let myself get away with excuses for my attitude to prayer.  Prayer has often been hard for me, in groups and alone.  I know that I'm not alone in this.  Pray is hard, that's the truth.  It's hard to keep at it, to keep trying, because it feels so weird.  There's nothing else that we do like it.  And often we wonder what's wrong when we pray because we don't feel any different, as if feelings are the gauge of God hearing us.  

But my thought that day last week shocked me.  Because while I don't expect that I will always love praying, and I certainly don't expect to be good at it without a lot of hard work, I shouldn't let that stop me from persisting.  And I shouldn't want to opt out from doing it.  Prayer is our lifeline to God.  It is our expression of our utter dependence on him for everything, and a product of our relationship with him.  How can we have a relationship with God if we never speak to him (prayer) and if we never listen to him (reading the Bible)?  

It was my sinfulness that said I was tired of prayer.  And I know I'm not disgusted enough with my sin, but the shock at my sin was good.  I was glad it shocked me because it showed me that God is changing me, little by little, working in my heart to make it like his and to despise my sin and love his righteousness. 

We visited a mosque today as part of our mission, to learn more about Islam and what Muslim's believe.  I've often been impressed with the amount of praying that pious Muslims do (at least five times a day according to the rules of their faith).  But I shouldn't need rules about when to pray to get me to pray.  Paul says to pray continuously! (1 Thess 5:17).  I know that God has made it possible for me to approach him in prayer without any need for special words or special actions.  Jesus has interceded for me before the Father and made me clean.  Praise be to God.  I need to remember this and keep trusting in God for everything, knowing how much of a privilege it is to come to him in prayer.

O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear.
All because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer.

(“What a Friend we have in Jesus”, lyrics Joseph Scriven)

Thankful Thursday

Hi everyone! 

Here we go with Thankful Thursday again.  I hope you have some things that you can be thankful for this week.  Here are some of the things I’m thankful for this week.

Books on my phone
I spent several hours at the airport and in a plane last weekend and I’m thankful for technology that fits into my pocket that provides entertainment anywhere.  Sometimes I still marvel at how much phones can do.  I’m particularly thankful for being able to read books on my phone.  This weekend I read through Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen.  I have recently seen the movie and I often find Austen novels easier to read after I’ve seen the movie.  I enjoyed reading it already knowing what was going on. 

Friends who feed me
I had dinner at our friends’ house Wednesday night because J was out at Bible study (which includes dinner).  My friends didn’t want me to have to eat alone.  Then after dinner we sat together in their house and studied (they are both students at college as well).  Being an introvert, I don’t often mind being alone but it was nice to have company that night, to chat about our day and companionably read together.  Thanks friends!

The relevance of the Bible
Today a dear friend preached in women’s chapel on Exodus 3:16-4:17.  We have college mission coming up in a couple of weeks and she used this passage to help us think about mission and encourage us to rely on God who uses even our fumbling words and who helps us to speak.  I’ve been feeling nervous about mission and if I’ll say and do the right things so this was a great comfort and encouragement to me.

Testimony

While on college mission I gave my testimony at a country dinner.  In was in a tiny town, half an hour’s drive out of Gunnedah.  There were about 20 people there and I shared with them what God has done in my life. 

I don’t remember when I first heard about God.  When I was young I started going to church with my family.  There I learnt about how God loved me and cared about me and was interested in me.  Somewhere along the line I learnt that God had forgiven my sins, but I didn’t understand why Jesus had to die for my forgiveness.  So I wanted to learn more about God, get to know him better.  I decided to start reading the Bible because I knew I could find out more about God there.  I started from the beginning but I got a bit stuck in the Old Testament.  I didn’t understand what all the short stories said about God or how they were relevant to me. 

It wasn’t until I got to university and joined a Christian group there, that I understood how the whole Bible fits together into one big story of God working through history, and that it was all leading up to the coming of Jesus.  I understood in a deeper way the reality of my sinfulness and how serious sin was.  I thought that sin was just things like lying, stealing or murder.  But I realised that these are symptoms of a deeper problem, a rebellion against God and the way he says is the best way to live our lives.  So it wasn’t just borrowing my sister’s clothes without asking that was a sin, but my unkind thoughts and my selfishness and my desire to live my life my own way and not God’s way.

I learnt that this rebellion against God is so offensive to him that it deserves punishment: death.  But I also learnt even more how great God’s love is, that Jesus died to take this punishment instead of me.  This is why Jesus had to die for me to be forgiven.  There’s a verse in the Bible that describes this well. 

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that whoever believes in him shall not die but have eternal life.  (John 3:16)

Because of this I know that my life is not my own, I should be living it in service to God. Jesus died when I should have died, so I now live my life for him.  Part of this is why I’m studying at college to learn more about God and how to share this good news with others.

Going to the country

While we have some access to the internet I thought I'd write a quick post to let you know what we're up to this week.

For one week of the year we have what's called College mission, where teams of students from college go out to various churches around the city (or even further away), to partner with the church in sharing the good news about Jesus and serving the community around them.  Our team was partnered with Gunnedah Anglican Church. 

Gunnedah is a country town in NSW, of about 8,000 people, an hour's drive from Tamworth (or if you don't know where that is, it's also 4 hours from Newcastle and 5 or 6 hours from Sydney).  We are being billeted with church members living in and around Gunnedah.  J and I, along with two other guys from our team, are staying with a couple who live ten minutes from the church, south of the centre, in an area that feels "out of town" because you drive through a 100 kilometres per hour speed zone to get there. 

This week we are involved in church services, playgroup, community visiting, scripture classes, outreach events for men and women, door knocking, training sessions, youth group and nursing home services.  So far we are very thankful for the welcome we have received, getting to know our hosts and the much needed rain in this dry part of the country (not to mention the cooling effect it has had on the weather!).

Please pray for us as we partner with the church serve the community here in Gunnedah.