How and why do i pray

So the fourth week has been and gone and more progress has been made slowly slowly. I have last night after a swift sprint back from Milton Keynes made it to the next session successfully although for a while I didn't think I was going to make it. I am now at the stage where every week of Alpha is exciting and can't wait to come back for the next week.

So this week is all about prayer and Nicky began with a list about what is Christian Prayer where we look at the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and talks about our intimateness with the Father as the way to be and the way forward as it is the way that we have communications with home.

We went on to talk about the rewards of prayer and the fact that these don't always come in the way of answers. We get this overwhelming sense of joy and peace apparently when we pray and the results of prayer are quite important but the results of prayer do not always turn up in the form they were expected in.


Nicky also talked about whether God answers prayer and some of them are not answered or they are answered in a different way to the way that they are answered.


Then we got onto how we prayer which is broken into four parts and then Nicky referred to the Lords prayer which is a haunting idea from my past. It reminds me of sitting on cold gymnasium floors reciting "Our father" in a group of 100 kids at the age of 7. I think that is probably what the Lords Prayer means to me. 


We then got onto the subject of how and when which covered with other people and I can't imagine the idea of praying aloud.. I'd either gonna fluff my lines or run out of stuff pretty much immediately.. if not sooner :).


So what do I make of this. First I don't pray very often. Apparently 75% of people pray once per week. Well I definitely have myself in the other 25%. Praying on the few occasions it has been done has been asking for stuff, not necessarily for me but asking for stuff none the less. The idea of giving adoration or confessing seems a bit of an alien idea but then I guess that is one of the reasons I am on the journey as I am learning these things as I go.


Prayer is very much an alien concept to me but it also has been a concept I just haven't tried alone the journey. In my opinion where I am today I don't consider it important. I want to learn and understand. To me reading the bible is the way to learn or to read literature. I guess I probably ought to try it more but you kind of wonder what to pray about. 


I have seen answers to prayer which I can't explain especially about the rabbit and I know it seems mad but I have seen other answers to prayer too in the last week which I can't explain and which really wouldn't be possible or couldn't be explained. It does seem a very powerful tool, but I have only been involved with one prayer that I can remember and part of me thinks I have 1 prayer done, 1 prayer answered. That is a pretty good hit rate. Part of me doesn't want to ruin it. Why would you? What if next time you didn't get an answer or you potentially never got the answer.


I then was reflecting on some of the things that I have been doing during the past few weeks and look at the questions I was asking a few weeks ago and the ones that I am asking today. The whole tone has changed. The questions I was asking don't matter anymore, they are not relevant. 


When I started I wasn't sure what was out there and if you'd asked my opinion I would have gone nothing probably. I have made some significant changes and discovered that God is out there, whatever that is. Unfortunately I always think of Morgan Freeman when I think of God as he has played him in a couple of films. But the peace and wisdom would be the way I would see it. He is not out to get us but to look after us, love us and nurture.


Which leads me full circle back to this blog. Why am I writing this? What possessed me to do this in the first place? I wrote this for me to track my own journey through Alpha and as a side effect made it something other people can read. What it actually has been is something far bigger than I could ever imagine. People take interest in it and think it is great and I am humbled by the interest that people have in what I have done. But why? I am a very poor writer, I have been told the way I write is not clear, simple to understand and not my natural forte. I am doing something way outside my comfort zone, but being honest to myself is what this is all about. But what if there is a higher power than us there who has decided to show me that the things I can do are very powerful and they are not through the skills I was naturally given, perhaps I don't know the skills I have been naturally given yet. 

So where is my journey at the moment. I am still stood there like my bunny with my back legs in the cage and my nose head ears and as much as I can lean out without falling outside my cage. There is an expectation that I am going to come to Jesus soon, and I think that might be the case but exactly when and exactly how I still have no idea. I guess something will eventually make me brave enough to venture out. Not today though I don't think but then who knows because it is not in our hands if I understand correctly.