Simple trust

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6.8)

Praying is simple but we can make it very complicated. It's so easy to think that if we just get the words right or pray for long enough then we'll get God to hear us: and if we get the words wrong, or don't use special religious language, or don't exhaust ourselves praying, then our prayers 'won't be heard'.

Jesus tells us not to think or to act like that - at all. As always, he brings us back to relationship. We have a heavenly Father who is trustworthy and who knows what we need before we ask him - not a remote deity who's waiting for us to get our prayer technique right before he listens.

So when praying about the Open Church Project - or anything else - let's simply tell our Father what's on our hearts - in our own words. (That includes questions, worries, anxieties - anything. It's best to be honest since he knows it all anyway!)

We really don't need special prayers to do this - if you can talk (out loud or in your head) you can pray.

Oh - and let's remember too, that the Father is concerned with what we need - which might sometimes be rather different to what we want (or think we want). As we grow to know him more by spending time talking with him, we will be better able to distinguish between the two.

A couple of prayer points for the Open Church Project: pray about our Partnership Project in Rwanda - that we honour the Lord in how we give to that; pray for continuing discussion among the OCP team and the PCC as we look at how the Project might go forward (following a good meeting this week with Chris, our external project manager, and Mike, the quantity surveyor).