This week James invites us to pray. I don’t know if you remember ever being taught to pray, if you learned to pray when you were young, or when you were old, if a parent or elder taught you to pray, or if one day you found yourself looking to the sky crying out to God for something, anything, or maybe you found yourself walking along a path admiring the world and just thought “Wow.”
I was taught to pray by my parents, and my church, but over time I found that my understanding of prayer, and how I’d pray would change.
Today I find myself praying, as if it were a conversation wth God as I drive, walk, shower, or even now as I type this reflection now.
Author Anne Lamott suggests there are three types of prayer;
Help. Prayers that ask for help from a higher power.
Thanks. Prayer offering gratitude for what we have.
Wow! Prayers that acknowledge the amazing world around us.
I think theres a fourth type of prayer, that of Sorry. Prayers that acknowledge the bad choices we’ve made, or that say sorry for systems of injustice that we participate in or benefit from.
So, there we have it, four ways of praying, Help, Thanks, Wow and Sorry, or in “church language” Intercession, Thanksgiving, Praise and Confession.
Sometimes we can over complicate prayer, thinking that we need to be great wordsmiths in order to pray. If you don’t find yourself to be very verbacious and believe your prayers to be less than worthy perhaps Anne’s descriptions can help.
One thing I really like about the descriptions of prayer as Help, Thanks, Wow and Sorry is that each prayer becomes only one word, perhaps one word is enough.
Or, in the case of “wow” prayers perhaps those times when we’re struck dumb with awe and can’t even manage a word then prayer is as beautiful as silence, or the breath of air you’re taking at the time.
Perhaps this week you might consider how you pray, and maybe you could write the church a letter, a story of how you learned to pray and what you’ve learned about prayer over the course of your life?
Or maybe you could just find the time each day for sharing those four words with God. Help. Thanks. Wow. Sorry.
For discussion at home.
- What are you thankful for this week?
- What has made you go “wow” this week?
- What would you like help with this week?
- What do we as a family need to be sorry for this week?
Shalom,
Darren Wright