prayer.

After Monday night, I’ve been thinking some more about prayer and where it fits in my life & the life of our community. (I suppose that I shouldn’t even be trying to figure out where prayer “fits” – it should be in all, without ceasing. After all, Paul tells us to pray continually … however, most days, this is easier said than done.)

Small steps. I need to remember how important it is to turn to God through prayer. I am reminded of this in moments like Monday night. It is good to pray together for each other and I have confidence that God is hearing us and responding. What better way to support and care for one another? Definately one of the most important things that we can do together.

Thomas Merton says this:
“Prayer is the movement of trust, of gratitude, of adoration, or of sorrow, that places us before God, seeing both Him and ourselves in the light of His infinite truth, and moves us to ask Him for the mercy, the spiritual strength, the material help, that we all need. The man whose prayer is so pure that he never asks God for anything does not know who God is, and does not know who he is himself: for he does not know his own need of God. All true prayer somehow confesses our absolute dependence on the Lord of life and death. It is, therefore, a deep and vital contact with Him whom we know not only as Lord but as Father. It is when we pray truly that we really are. Our being is brought to a high perfection by this.”

So, let’s continue to remember to pray together. For each other, our community, families, passions, jobs, anxieties, celebrations, relationships … life. Let’s pray for our Quarry parents. Our travelling Quarry friends. Our job-searchers, those who are struggling and those celebrating, our question-askers, our community-changers …

But we can’t stop there. To take it one step further & remember to find out how God responded. I so often pray & then forget about it. But it is so exciting to hear how God moves when we pray (remember Dave’s rib?!?) and celebrate together. After praying for each other both as a large group and in our small group on Monday, I wonder … what happened next? What is God doing now?

maja.