Source of Life: Prayer as Relationship Exodus 3:1-12

Introduction

Over the next five weeks, we are going to be focusing on the very important subject of prayer. Over this period we are going to be thinking of:
Prayer as the source of life, as relationship
Prayer as the source of joy, about enjoying God
Prayer as the source of light, focusing particularly on listening in prayer
Prayer as the source of wholeness, thinking about honest in prayer
Prayer as the source of love, thinking about prayer care

I hope that over the course of the next few weeks, we will have fresh insights into this very important subject. This is subject is an extremely important one. Brother Roger of Taize once said, ‘When a church gets on its knees and prays, people come running’. The one area in the life of St Martin’s that I feel we need to work at the most is our prayer life. It is no coincidence that when a church prays it grows, because it opens itself up to the power of God.

For example, Pastor Cho leads the worlds largest church, the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, South Korea. This church started in 1958 with just 6 people, today it has 800 thousand members. And what is the secret of this churches growth? Prayer. Prayer from the very start has been one of their main priorities, and it has born much fruit.

Now if we are at all serious about wanting to see St Martin’s grow, and if we want to grow as Christians, we must take prayer seriously.

I do however, have a confession to make, which is, I don’t find prayer all that easy. It is one area of my Christian life, where I know I struggle. I do not always find prayer that easy, but I know what a big difference it makes to my life. So I am speaking to you today, not as an expert in prayer, but as someone who is constantly learning how to pray.

Prayer: The Source of Life

The title of today’s talk is Prayer: The Source of Life. And I want to focus particularly on prayer as relationship, because at its most basic that is what prayer is. It is about our relationship with God.

As I have said many times before the Christian faith is all about a relationship with God the Father, through Jesus Christ. And like any relationship, whether we are talking about our relationship with God, or with our friends of family, communication is absolutely central. If there is no communication, then there is no relationship.

To give an example, if you are married, but don’t communicate with one another, then there is no real relationship. Just in the same way that we can come to church, and outwardly do all those things we think a Christian should do, but don’t pray, then there is little real relationship.

The reason prayer is the source of life, is that through it we grow in our closeness and intimacy with God.

Exodus

The reading from Exodus 3, and the call of Moses, reveals some important things about the nature and importance of the relational nature of prayer.

Giving God full attention

The first thing to note is that when Moses sees the burning bush, and realises that the bush is not being consumed by the fire, Moses realises that he is in a holy place. And he gives God his full attention.

And in prayer, we are called to give God our full attention. The trouble I find is that it is very easy to get distracted. If someone is trying to talk to me, and the TV or Radio is on in the background, I personally find it very hard to concentrate on what they person is saying, to communicate I need give that person my full attention. Similarly, I find that very easy for distractions to get in the way of prayer, speaking personally may be because I simply allow them to get in the way. This is why it is so good to get into a routine of having a what is described as quiet time. A time when you know you will not be disturbed, so you can read the Bible and pray. When that time is will depend on your individual circumstances, what matters is that you find something that works for you.

And when you give someone you full attention, you are waiting on them, you are giving yourself to them. One of the most common mistakes people make when it comes to prayer, is that we do all the talking, and forget to listen. In a couple of weeks time we will look more closely at the ideal of prayer as listening.

Another thing we need to be aware of, is that if we are not careful, we tend to treat God as some sort of divine shop assistant, our prayers more like a shopping list, than a genuine dialogue. This is not to say that God doesn’t want to hear our requests, because in the Lord’s prayer we are taught to prayer, “Give us today our daily bread”. It’s just that, if that is all our prayer is, then it leaves a lot to be desired. Imagine if every time you met your best friend, all you did was tell them what you would like for the coming day or week, your friend would soon wonder what sort of relationship you have together.

Moses is called by name

Secondly we see that Moses is called by name. Again this emphasises both the personal nature of our calling and our relationship with God. God calls us all by name to follow him. It is a reminder that God knows us, and wants to be a part of our lives.

God calls Moses for a very specific task, he says “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt, I have heard their cry… indeed I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians” We see clearly how God’s heart is for His people. God is concerned about what goes on in our lives. Our God is a relational God. The very nature of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, illustrates the importance of relationships. This is emphasised when God speaks to Moses from the burning bush and says “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

John Pritchard in his book ‘How to Pray’ writes, “Prayer is about exploring a relationship with God, it is not about an esoteric technique.” Prayer is about getting to know more about God and about ourselves. How you pray, is far less important than actually praying. Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Reading, writes, “Human beings are made for relationship with God. When we pray we discover the truth about ourselves: that we are children of God. Within this relationship we can flourish and become fully ourselves as God intended us to be.” That is why pray is the source of life for us as Christians. Because through it, we discover who we truly are, by getting to know the one who made us.

Drawing closer to God

Another thing we learn from the Exodus narrative, is that prayer is about drawing closer to God. When God calls out to Moses he said “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And through prayer we enter into the presence of the most Almighty God, we as it were stand on holy ground.

Prayer is an awesome privilege, when we consider who it is we are addressing. We pray to the creater of the universe. On 20 August 1977, Voyager II, the inter-planetary probe launched to observe and transmit to earth data about the outer planetary system, set off from earth travelling faster than the speed of a bullet (90,000 miles per hour). On 28 August 1989 it reached planet Neptune, 2,700 million miles from the earth. Voyager II then left the solar system. It will not come within one light year of any star for 958,000 years. In our galaxy there are 100,000 million stars, like our sun. Our galaxy is one of 100,000 million galaxies. In a throwaway line in Genesis, the writer tells us, ‘He also made the stars’ (Genesis 1:16). Such is his power. Andrew Murray, the Christian writer, once said, ‘The power of prayer depends almost entirely upon our apprehension of who it is with whom we speak.’

Prayer is not only about drawing closer to God, but it is also about putting God at the centre. Stephen Cottrell again writes, “Prayer is the most natural thing in the world. I can also be the hardest. Because it is relationship it is about letting go and allowing someone else to be the centre of your life. In so many ways the human spirit will recoil from this kind of loving. We like to be at the centre ourselves.”

I am by nature, quite a selfish person, and so putting someone else at the centre of my life, it not something that always comes naturally it is something that I need to work at. The same is true of prayer. Prayer is something I need to work at, and I suspect that is true of most of us here. We all face times, when we find it difficult to pray, it may be at times when we are under great stress, or when we are ill, or when we feel God is very distant. In those times, it is so important we persist in praying. The protestant reformer Martin Luther said “If I should neglect prayer but a single day, I should lose a great deal of the fire of faith.” To give a comparison it is essential to eat and drink to maintain our health, even if we don’t feel like it. If we do neglect these most basic of things, it will not be long before it begins to effect us, the same is true if we neglect prayer.

There are many ways we can build prayer into our lives, so prayer becomes a very natural outflowing of our life. For example, when you notice during the day that you feel good about something, just say it to God, in whatever words come naturally. Similarly, when there’s something you feel worried about, or when you get news about someone you care about. Talk about it to God. In many ways we are very good at talking to ourselves about things, prayer is simply turning the talk outwards to God, and drawing him into our lives. This is the essence of the prayer relationship we have with God, that we can take all things to him in prayer.

Conclusion

Over the next month we are going to look in more detail at prayer, and I do hope that we will all use this as an opportunity to focus again on the place of prayer in our own lives, and in the life of this church.