Issue 39 Steadfast PrayerBlog | Praying in, with and for creation
Praying in, with and for creation
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 13.06.24
Confession time. When it comes to prayer, I suffer from imposter syndrome. All my life, I’ve felt inadequate. Don’t get me wrong. I do pray. Yet, I always feel I don’t pray enough, or with enough steadfastness. When I meet people with highly organised prayer-lists, who tell me they pray for me or my children daily, I feel a failure.
What has helped release me from this burden is diving into God’s two books: Scripture and nature. I’ve come to see, gradually, that prayer is not a kind of spiritual Excel spreadsheet, a precise tick box exercise of organisation and timetabling. Nor is it a kind of holy bodybuilding, getting up at 4am to do punishing spiritual exercises, sweating and straining to intercede more effectively. God bless people who can do that, but – let’s be honest – they’re not, well, normal!
In the Bible and in creation, prayer is essentially a relationship, an orientation, something as natural as breathing. Moreover, prayer isn’t always wordy. It can be about movement: prayer-walking, trees waving their branches, birds singing. It can also include longing, groaning and weeping that go deeper than words.
God’s ecology
If prayer is to be ‘steadfast’ it needs to be sustainable. Otherwise, it’s like a New Year’s resolution that disappears with the turkey and the tree. I started to learn this years ago when I was training for ordained ministry. My wife was long-term ill, and we’d just suffered the first of a series of miscarriages. Prayer, as I’d been taught it, didn’t work. Sitting indoors with eyes closed and head bowed, or in a church service, felt forced and empty and I just couldn’t concentrate. So, I went for a walk in some nearby woods. Instead of the imagined voices in my head judging me for being a failure for not praying, I strode out on fallen leaves, with branches and dappled light above.
