Manali Missives 11/2014 An Indian Journey through Lent Day 9

An Indian Journey through Lent, Day 9

Prayer, the second of Rev Thomas Weitzel’s Fourfold Disciplines of Lent is, quite simply, communication with God, analogous in most if not all ways with communication with other humans. The best book on prayer I have read, by the Norwegian Ole Hallesby, states that like a newborn baby’s cry, prayer starts with a cry for help, but just as human communication develops in amazingly diverse ways, so does communication with God. It’s vitally important to remember that like all good communication, prayer is two way. We will not be really praying unless we are listening to God as well as talking. Just as there are many ways of discerning what another person is communicating, so with God.

Motivated by the conviction that prayer is the work of the people of God, and that it is effective, Lena and I prioritise it. I wouldn’t say that we are good at it, but we try. Each morning more or less awake, we pray separately, as part of our personal devotions. I struggle through a daily list of people for whom I pray. By evening we are more awake. At dinner time we pray together for people and situations that have been brought to our attention throughout the day. We send a prayer bulletin we call Manali Prayer Partnership to more than 500 people each month, and we have a much smaller group of intercessors that we send requests for emergency prayer to. For us prayer is both a difficult discipline and a joy.