Cornerstone No. 182, page 16
Andrew’ s church, Arbroath, this year’ s church weekend focused on prayer. We all know prayer is vital to our life as Christians and as a congregation but nevertheless it is something many of us struggle with. Over five sessions, Martin helped us look at our communication with God from different angles through reflections, Bible passages, personal stories and discussion. First off, we considered what prayer is. Martin spread a number of cards across the floor with quotes on prayer from many different Christian and non- Christian sources. From Martin Luther there was the assertion that“ To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing”, and from Søren Kierkegaard,“ Prayer does not change God but it changes him who prays”. We all selected a quote that meant most to us and shared those with the rest of the group. This led on to why we pray. Martin shared with us personal stories from his parishioners of prayers – big and small – that had been answered. For instance, the woman suffering for a long time from a debilitating illness who prayed that a visit to the doctor would finally bring a diagnosis – and then found her exact symptoms described in a magazine article she happened to read in the doctor’ s waiting room! Of course, for every answered prayer there is one to which no answer is received – or at least not the answer we want. So why we pray? Simply because God wants to hear from us and longs to give to us. And in the words of Kierkegaard, because prayer changes us for the better.