It all started when I decided to re-read a book that made a real impact on my devotional life when I read it back in 1988, the year I left Youth for Christ, worked with Andy and Simon Hawthorne on “Message ‘88” (the foundation for Message Trust, The Tribe, Eden Project etc) and, towards the end of the year, joined the staff at Ivy Cottage Church, in Manchester as youth pastor…just reading that little list makes me remember how desperate I was to improve my prayer life, and, almost on cue, along came a book by Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in Barrington, Illinois entitled “Too Busy NOT to Pray”.
I devoured the book, did the stuff, taught the stuff and really grew in my prayer life.
Since then I have tried a lot of other ways to pray. I gave up the “shopping list” prayers that my tradition so often seemed to encourage and learned other ways to make space for God to speak into my life…using a Daily Office, ‘Lectio Divina’, Centring Prayer, praying with prayer beads.
Recently the scriptures reminded me that asking for stuff really is OK as part of a balanced prayer life…I needed to be reminded about that.
“Don’t worry about anything: instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he’s done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4: 6-7.
As I re-read the book this week the chapter that stood out was about “Slowing Down to Pray”. It’s simple, helpful ideas spoke to me as freshly as when I first read them. I felt like somewhere in my quest for a deeper prayer life all I’d got was a more complicated one, and often a less intimate one too.
And somewhere in the middle of the chapter, Hybel’s quotes Gordon MacDonald’s “Ordering Your Private World”:
“Most of us, the author said, live unexamined lives. We repeat the same errors day after day. We don’t learn much from the decisions we make, whether they are good or bad. We don’t know why we’re here or where we’re going…”
One thing leads to another, and so I found the Socrates quote. Along with all the other writers, it’s something I needed to hear, a gift from God at this time.
So for a while, I’m back to daily journalling, prayers shaped by the acronym ‘ACTS’ and a time of deliberate listening. It’s simple, disciplined and I feel more involved in my prayer, more like I’m actually trying to have a relationship with God.
I don’t want to live an unexamined life.
I’m certain some of you will be thinking, “Ah, Dave’s getting older and he’s returning to old certainties; he’s going to an evangelical church and he’s abandoned all the good stuff he’s learned and gone back to being a ‘good evangelical’.”
All or some of that may be true. I prefer to think that maybe I’ve grown up just a bit…and I want to grow some more!
Pilgrim Traveller 