We are so grateful for our worship yesterday and celebration of the historic Supreme Court decision to support marriage equality. All means all. Amen.
We conclude our three-week worship series this week on Prayer. It is based on two books: Help, Thanks, Wow The Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott and Prayer Finding the Heart’s True Home by Richard J. Foster. This series comes from the desires expressed in so many of our Deep Commitments regarding prayer. While we may not answer all the questions we do hope to focus on 3 areas: The history of prayer, praying in community and the personal practice of prayer.
Outline of Prayer
June 21 Prayer through history based on Mark 4.35-41 Jesus stills the waters. Help!
June 28 Prayer in our community based on Psalm 30 – Singing praises to God. Thanks
July 5 Prayer in our life based on Matthew 6.9-15 – The Lord’s prayer. Wow
This week we hear Jesus instructing his disciples to pray. This is a familiar prayer for many and for some it may be new. Richard Foster writes: “The Lord’s prayer is really a total prayer. Its concerns embrace the whole world, from the coming of the kingdom to daily bread. Large things and small things, spiritual things and material things, inward things and outward things – nothing is beyond the purview of this prayer.”(p 184) We root our lives in Grace when we become tuned into the creation in which we live. This means EVERYTHING! All of life. Anne Lamott writes: “‘Wow’ means we are not dulled to wonder. We click into being fully present when we’re stunned into that gasp by the sight of a birth, or images of the World Trade Center towers falling, or the experience of being in a fjord, at dawn, for the first time. “Wow” is about having one’s mind blown by the mesmerizing or the miraculous: the veins in a leaf, birdsong, volcanoes.” (p 71)
The Lord’s prayer includes many concerns. Read Matthew 6.9-15 aloud once a day this week. Allow this practice of prayer to help you notice God’s Grace in your life each day. Record what you notice and share with a friend or family member at the end of the week.