WHY PRAY?
It has been said by Army chaplains that
“there are no atheists in foxholes.”
The first thing that needs to be said is that there are no experts with prayer, only people who have tried it in different ways and found it helpful. Most people who pray don’t always find it easy and some really struggle with it. There is no one way to pray. Someone has wisely said – pray as you can, do not pray as you can’t.
So why pray?
It‘s just so natural, we do it all the time, particularly if we are in a challenging situation we, whether we have faith or not, send up a prayer of help. It has been said by Army chaplains that there are no atheists in foxholes.
Just recently in the worldwide Global Connections concert for the world, one of the theme tunes ‘The Prayer’, sung by Lady Gaga, Celine Dion, Andrea Boccelli, John Legend and Lang Lang contained these words:
I pray you'll be our eyes
And watch us where we go
And help us to be wise
In times when we don't know
Let this be our prayer
When we lose our way
Lead us to a place
Guide us with your grace
To a place where we'll be safe
I pray we'll find your light
And hold it in our hearts
When stars go out each night
Let this be our prayer
When shadows fill our day
Lead us to a place
Guide us with your grace
Give us faith so we’ll be safe
We ask that life be kind
And watch us from above
We hope each soul will find
Another soul to love
Another song from the same event was entitled ‘Soon you’ll get better’. This song written and sung by Taylor Swift contained these words:
Desperate people find faith, so now I pray to Jesus too.
Yes, in desperate times and situations, we feel the need to reach out, to share the pain, to ask for help. It seems natural to pray to a higher authority, someone outside of ourselves. For most world faiths, prayer is important.
The link below will take you to a short cartoon clip entitled ‘Why pray?’ We hope you find it helpful.
On the 24-7 Prayer website, there is plenty of information on how to pray, as well as resources and tools for praying in the midst of the coronavirus crisis.
You also might find the video on the following link helpful:
https://practicingtheway.org/pray/week-one
If you would like to talk more about prayer and praying having watched the above videos, you might like to join a zoom meeting in a couple of weeks’ time.
If interested email church.office@bhcgodalming.org
Rev Andy Spencer