Roy’s Ramblings

I was deeply touched, moved, and inspired by Breelynd Phelps’s TEDX talk about prayer. And, this past week I have heard so many folks talking about: praying for the damage done by the tornadoes and the people affected (especially Dick and Laura Young – see attached info on helping them); that I thought I would ramble about prayer and John Wesley’s approach to prayer.

Prayer is how we communicate with God. In prayer, we share our hearts. We also pause to listen for wisdom and guidance. As John Wesley wrote, “All that a Christian does, even in eating and sleeping, is prayer, when it is done in simplicity, according to the order of God.”

Recently (and that means in the past few years) there has been a public debate over prayer. Persons have been criticized for offering “thoughts and prayers” for victims of things like gun violence, war, natural disasters due to global warming, etc. while taking no action to address the problems. Sometimes in the process, prayer has been equated to doing nothing.

John Wesley was certainly an activist working to alleviate human suffering, but he was also a person of prayer. It’s no wonder why. Wesley said, “Prayer is the grand means of drawing near to God” it is “the breath of our spiritual life” Note: 1 Thes. 5:16.

While petition and intercession are forms of prayer, they are not the whole. The focus of prayer is not on our requests, however urgent, but on God. Prayer is how we remain in communication with God and grow in our relationship with God. In his sermon “The Wilderness State” Wesley says that “neglect of private prayer is the most common reason people lose their faith”.

Thanksgiving is fundamental to prayer. For Wesley “thanksgiving is inseparable from true prayer; it is almost essentially connected with it”. It is an expression of our gratitude to God for life itself, for a new life in Christ, for all of the other blessings God gives us, and above all for a divine lover that never fails.

We of course do turn to God with our petitions (for our own needs) and intercessions (for others needs). With regard to petition, Wesley insists that prayer is absolutely necessary “if we would receive any gift from God” (“The Means of Grace,” 111.3). Here Wesley is assuming the primary things we seek for ourselves have to do with salvation: forgiveness of sins, new life in Christ, guidance in how to live faithful lives, peace, joy and love. For these promised gifts, our prayers are needed “not so much to move God — who is always more ready to give than you to ask — as to move yourselves, that you may be willing and ready to receive the good things he has prepared for you” (“Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount VI,” 11.5).

This does not mean Wesley thought it improper to pray for other things for ourselves. Even more, he strongly advocated praying for others. Prayer for others is an act of love, and regardless of whether the prayer is answered in the way we prefer, it often means much to the person being prayed for that there are others who care.

But Wesley does insist that God answers prayers. He doesn’t try to answer the question as to why some prayers seem to be answered and others seem not to be, at least the way we want. Nor does seemingly unanswered prayer lead him to question God’s love; God’s love is revealed in the cross of Jesus Christ and nothing can take that from us. What Wesley does too is recount the numerous occasions when prayer was answered, including many miraculous healings.

For Wesley, as for the Christian tradition, prayer is doing something, and it does make a difference. It is not a substitute for other action; but neither is it inaction. At its heart, prayer is communion/relationship with God.

Praying for you All – Pastor Roy