A thought on prayer

A thought on prayer

I’d just like to spend a few moments talking about something that people tend to do in private. They rarely mention it to other people, although in fact most people do it quite regularly and probably everybody has given it a go at some stage. Maybe they think its embarrassing but the reality is that most, if not all of us do this.

I’m talking about prayer.

I reckon that even the Pope hasn’t the perfect idea of who it is that he’s talking to when he’s praying. Yet I also suspect that even a child has some idea. This ‘God idea’ is something that most people latch-on to quite easily when we’re thinking of what lies behind this strangely wonderful and sometimes terrible thing we call ‘life’.

We have had several completely non-religious people come into our church because they need to say ‘thank you’ for a new child, or ‘sorry’ for something they’ve done wrong. Maybe we don’t talk about prayer because we have so little idea of who it is that we’re talking to? Or maybe we don’t talk about prayer because it only works when we are totally and utterly honest?