For 11 days, Trinity will be praying.
Now, that shouldn’t be a big deal–we’re a church, we’re Christians, we’re supposed to pray, right? Indeed, many Trinity members do have a regular prayer practice. This is different.
From May 30–June 9, Trinity joins in a worldwide prayer program called Thy Kingdom Come. Initiated by the Church of England, this call to prayer has been answered by Christians in over 100 countries, in many denominations. The idea is to pray for the presence of the Holy Spirit in our world. Specifically we are asked to pray for 5 people, asking that they will know Christ and come to faith.
Those are the details. Here’s a question: What do we think we are doing? Does prayer change God? Does God now have the ability, empowered by our prayers, to do what he would not otherwise do? Does prayer persuade God to care in a new way?
All that seems like nonsense to me. If God’s love is meant for all, why would prayer be needed to unleash that love? If we are free to accept or reject God’s presence, how would prayer change those rules? Prayer doesn’t send God somewhere he would not regularly be. Indeed, for those of us who follow Jesus, we know that there is nowhere God is not. The reality of Jesus’ mission means that God is present in our world: Incarnational, is the word for reality.
Prayer helps us see what God already doing and how God is already present. In this way, prayer doesn’t change God, but it does change us. We can work for God’s purposes, inspired by the Holy Spirit because we have a better understanding of what those purposes are, and how they are being fulfilled. Prayer opens our eyes and our lives, allowing us to be part of what is already there.
Yet, maybe that is not all. Ultimately, the ways of God are a mystery. Praying or not, we can’t change or control God. In prayer, however, we become partners in the change God is bringing about in the world. In prayer we also open a door, inviting the Holy Spirit to do new things. How and why those doors are shut is not nearly as important as the possibility of opening them.
So we pray. For ourselves, for 5 people, for Trinity for the world–for so much and so many. And we watch and wait, to see what difference the Holy Spirit might make. Finally, we act–serving as we know God calls us to, in love and in service of the holy community. Something might change; that’s what we wait to see.
11 Days of Prayer: What could go right? I can’t wait to see.
