Better than chocolate

On Tuesday night I went to an Emmanuel ‘World mission prayer evening’.  Sounds grand doesn’t it?  

Well, it didn’t feel grand as I dragged myself out of the comfort of home leaving laughter and chocolate behind.  It looked insignificant as four of us gathered in a living room in Manor Farm to, umm, pray.  It felt even less grand when I found out that going to world mission prayer meetings used to be part and parcel of church life – there are still many gatherings across Bristol of faithful people praying together for those they’ve never met.  Yet these meetings are lacking anyone from my generation, and probably the generation above me too.  ‘Why?’ we asked. 

For me, the reasons abound (though I fear the reality is they’re often more excuses than thought-through reasons).  But one thing we did conclude – we just don’t pray.  Setting aside time each day to talk to our Father is a struggle.  Remembering during the day to send up an arrow prayer just doesn’t come naturally.  And praying in public – corporate prayer – just doesn’t really make it onto the priorities list; it’s awkward (we don’t know what to say and fear what others will make of it when we do), it’s effort (inconvenient, requiring more energy than we can muster) and it’s distinctly unimpressive.

Yet Tuesday evening, to my surprise, was the highlight of my week.  Even better than the chocolate I had left at home.

“Your Kingdom come!” we were thinking about on Sunday at Emmanuel Bishopston and Emmanuel Westbury (you can listen here).  As the four of us waved our white flags of surrendering our Tuesday evenings to the King (the big surrender), we prayed for the Kingdom to come over the whole world – the massive surrender of everyone everywhere – and over everything in the cosmos – the gigantic surrender of everything everywhere.  Because Jesus as the King is the very best thing – not just for us in Bristol but for the migrants in Calais, for students in Greece, for prisoners in Japan, for families of martyrs in Somalia.  So we prayed that prayer.

And as we prayed, the evening went from feeling insignificant to truly grand.  We knew the presence of God with us, marvelled at the truths of the gospel we were praying, and got involved with the Spirit’s work across the whole world – bringing about Jesus’ Kingdom.

And now I get why previous generations build their weeks around such prayer meetings – because they believe that prayer works, that praying for God’s Kingdom to come is a prayer he loves to answer.  And as we prayed, I was reminded of the scale of God’s plan that put my struggles in perspective and lifted my eyes to the one who truly is the best King.

Join us:

Thursday 17^th September, 8pm – prayer for Muslims in the UK and around the world (dinner from 7)

Tuesday 13^th October, 7am (on the way to work) – prayer for across the globe