Written by Rueben P. Job
We can live a life of faithfulness to God, a life of joyful trust and confident assurance even in our troubled and divisive time. But we can never do it on our own. It is inconceivable that we should think we could live a life of companionship with God without God’s help. It is impossible to live a Spirit-led, Spirit-guided life without the Spirit’s help. And prayer is the only way to enter into and keep that relationship with God alive and thriving.
Granted, there are a multitude of methods and models of prayer. But all true prayer fashions and forms our relationship with God and without it we are simply trying to do God’s work on our own. A preposterous idea! To seek to live a life faithful to God while avoiding God is a great pretense that will end in failure. Jewish mystic Abraham Heschel says, “Prayer is an invitation to God to intervene in our lives, to let God’s will prevail in our affairs; it is the opening of a window to God in our will, an effort to make God the Lord of our soul. We submit our interests to God’s concern and seek to be allied with what is ultimately right. Our approach to the holy is not an intrusion, but an answer.” (Man’s Quest For God, Scribner, 1954).
When You Pray is written for everyone. It is meant to be accessible to the beginner and also a reminder and help to the person practiced in the life of prayer. It is accessible because it is grounded in familiar biblical passages and shaped by the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray. It is designed as a way of practicing a life of prayer. If we are eight or eighty we will still be learning, growing, and discovering as we nurture our relationship with God and as we allow God to nurture us in this daily time with God. Individuals, families, small groups, and the entire congregation can use When You Pray as they seek to discover or deepen their walk with God.
Becoming A Praying Congregation is designed for use in a congregation-wide effort to become a praying congregation. So often congregations are limited by a belief that nothing can be known or done beyond their own capacity or knowledge. Becoming A Praying Congregation provides a pathway to discover anew or for the first time God’s desire to be our constant Guide, Companion, Savior, and Lord. When You Pray is the playbook, the daily map for this journey of faith that we are all making.
Both Becoming a Praying Congregation and When You Pray are designed in such a way that the user can start on any day of any year and be at an appropriate place of beginning. Congregations will decide when they want to begin a congregation-wide effort on the basis of their own program needs and plans. Individuals, families, and small groups will do the same. Some may want to begin as an Advent or Lenten experience, but any time is the right time to begin or renew one’s relationship with God.