Praying in a Pandemic

Sleepless nights and anxious, aimless, endless days. Maybe I should fill them with prayer, but all too often my prayers seem to rattle around in my empty yet troubled head, feeding my doubts that God even listens, let alone cares about my insignificant problems.

But these are different times - now I cannot bury my doubts beneath layers of busyness, now I am face to face with all my broken, inadequate, muddled and messy faith. How can I pray effectively when my faith is weak - but how can I not pray? I have names on my wall, and in my heart, of people to pray for, but I know God wants more than my lists; He wants me, and I want Him - right now, more than ever, I want Him.

As a girl schooled in convent ways it took me a long time to learn that prayer was not principally the repetition of the Rosary and the constant need for absolution if I was to avoid the fires of hell. My early memories of prayer as a child are of kneeling on cold stone floors, while people droned on unintelligibly on a monotone that indicated they were as mind-numbed, and as fearful of the wrath of God as I was.

Then when I learned as an adult that God loved me and gave my life to Christ and joined an evangelical church, my problem with prayer was no longer the liturgy, which at least had a full stop and an Amen, eventually, or the fear factor, but the people who prayed interminable and often random prayers . . . as well as those who used their prayers as sticks with which to beat the rest of the congregation into submission.

I perhaps should say at this point that I have also been to countless prayer gatherings that have been uplifting, joyous occasions when I have genuinely felt the presence and the pleasure of God in our midst.

But I don’t need - and can’t have - prayer meetings right now. What I need is to draw close to God and know that he loves me and listens to me.

Asaph expressed his thoughts on this subject in Psalm 77 -

“I cried out to God for help;

I cried out to God to hear me.

When I was in distress I sought the Lord,

at night I stretched out untiring hands,

and I would not be comforted”

He couldn’t sleep either!

And, like me, he couldn’t find the right words - v.4 - “I was too troubled to speak”

Sometimes there are no words, sometimes I just don’t know what to say to God. But that’s fine.

As the Message version of Romans 8:26-27 says “God’s Spirit is right alongside, helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves”.

I think I pray more often when I don’t talk than when I talk.

When I talk my mind and my will get in the way - I know what I want God to do, and I can be very good at trying to manipulate Him by claiming stuff from Him that is not in His plan or my best interests. I am the child, he is the father!

In these shutdown times more than ever I have the opportunity to learn what it means to simply BE with God, allowing my spirit and His to talk with each other. I am not talking about seeking ‘Holy Spirit knowledge’ from God, in some vain glorious attempt to claim special knowledge of God’s plans in these times. I simply need to be with God for HIS sake, to be honest with him, to find rest for my soul and to trust in his love.

That was the point Asaph got to in Psalm 77:6-8: “My heart meditated and my spirit asked: will the Lord reject forever. Will he never show his favour again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever . . . “

It’s OK to question God - Asaph is really asking the BIG question “God are you really loving? Have you forgotten us? Do you care - because I’m not sure I can see evidence of that right now?”

My prayers surely, above all else, must involve being honest with God? I’m sure he can handle it!

And then I might get to the point that Asaph got to, where he moved on from thinking about his problems to thinking about God; and although, like me, he still has lots of unanswered questions he is able to trust that God is walking with him, and that is all he needs to move forward. That is what I need each day - the ability to trust God for just the next step, the next moment, the next hour, and to walk with Him through those moments - what Brother Lawrence described nearly 400 years ago as Practising the Presence of God.

Henri Nouwen, 20th century Dutch theologian puts it so beautifully:

To pray means to open your hands before God. . . . prayer is a way of life that allows you to find stillness in the midst of the world where you open your hands to God’s promises and find hope for yourself, your neighbour, and your world. . . . Prayer is living, it is eating and drinking, acting and resting, teaching and learning, playing and working. Praying pervades every aspect of our lives. It is the unceasing recognition that God is wherever we are, always inviting us to come closer and to celebrate the divine gift of being alive.