The Prayer Course is a six week small group study put out as a joint partnership between the 24/7 Prayer movement and the folk at Alpha. It is a great series designed to help people with their prayer lives. Each session has a teaching session done by video featuring Pete Grieg who was the founder of 24?7 Prayer and is involved at Holy Trinity Brampton and with Alpha. The teaching is based round Jesus teaching on Prayer and in particular the Lord's Prayer (the Our Father for my catholic friends) as a pattern for our own prayer lives.The teaching is done in a very accessible style with Grieg is interviewed by Tim Hughes, who keeps Pete on track and does a good job of summing things up and 'bringing it on home'. It is followed by a time of discussion and extra bible study and a practical... a time of prayer focusing on the area of prayer being talked about.
One of the great things about the Prayer Course, at least from my Scottish Presbyterian heritage is that its free... It is a gift to the church... You can register sign in and download the video's and discussion sheets (called cheat sheets) here is the link to the prayer course... http://www.prayercourse.org/
Anyway I found the first video looking at 'adoration' to be a great help. The first question in the discussion was to share what you found helpful from the video.
I appreciated Pete Grieg's reflection that starting prayer with Adoration, acknowledging who God is and what he has done for us, helped put our prayers into context. He mentioned a simple prayer like "god help me at work today"... It could be prayed out of fear and desperation... that work wasn't going well and with all the troubles that could go along with that.. but by starting by acknowledging who God is... God is sovereign, he has plans for us that are for our good not our harm, he empowers us to bear fruit to his glory... It changes how we view the day and the situation... God help me at work today becomes a prayer of faith.
I woke up this morning after doing the prayer course (always a blessing really) and for the first time in a long while I woke up giving thanks to God... I wasn't flash long wordy prayers it was just simple stuff... I think one was simply thanks god for the sunrise... for a new day... and thanks God that I could sleep in a bit longer and miss it... I'm sure it was wonderful but hey...
I went out to breakfast and my daughter came out into the kitchen talking about her day... that today was going to be horrible. So in my new found mood of praise and awareness of God's presence and Goodness... I said 'God is good' and we got into that whole Ron Kenoly thing... "All the time" she said... etc... Then a simple verse from scripture 'this is the day that the Lord has made... Let us rejoice and be glad in it' (psalm 118:24). And I realised, remembered had an 'oh Yeah' Moment... that adoring God and acknowledging who he is, his presence and his goodness puts the day into perspective... Now my daughter is a teenager under pressure because of looming exams and deadlines and we both agreed we were having bad hair days... but it was good to see those in the context of God's greatness, His goodness and his great love... I do hope and pray that she has a good day at school... and God help me at work...
These may seem like were are dealing with those pesky small so called "first world problems' but another thing from the first session of the prayer course was that it is in the day to day stuff that we develop a prayer life that will hold us when it comes to the tough times and the big stuff... I remember a sermon from about 25 years ago...where the preacher gave the illustration of the life boat service in England. He said that it was the day to day training and preparation they did in the good weather that meant they had confidence and could continue to do their job as they headed out into the thunderous dangerous turmoil of the storm to save people... likewise with our relationship with God, and our prayer life... it is in the day to day that we build up and learn to relate and trust in God and that holds us in good stead as we face life's big issues...
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