Whenever I sing William Bright’s old communion hymn, “And now, O Father, mindful of the love”, which contains the lines, “Look, Father, look on his anointed face, and only look on us as found in him; look not on our misusings of thy grace, our prayer so languid, and our faith so dim; for lo, between our sins and their reward we set the passion of thy Son, our Lord”, I am reminded of the paucity of my own prayer life. I am reminded especially of three things: that I often fret and become anxious about a problem instead of remembering Joseph Scriven’s wise advice to ‘take it to the Lord in prayer’; I pray about a matter and remain anxious because of my lack of trust; and having prayed and benefitted greatly from God’s grace and mercy in answering my prayer, I forget to thank him.
Another old hymn that challenges my prayer life is a prayer to the Holy Spirit (‘Spirit of God descend upon my heart’ - George Croly), which contains the lines “Teach me to feel that thou art always nigh; teach me the struggles of the soul to bear, to check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh; teach me the patience of ‘unanswered’ prayer.” I certainly need to learn the fruit of the Spirit, ‘patience’, when God answers my prayers in accordance with his sovereign will instead of my faulty ‘desires’ - for his glory and my good - prayers that only appear to me, from my very limited perspective, to be ‘unanswered’!
As we struggle with the trend of current world events, and as we consider the ‘world’ our children and grandchildren (and whatever future generations that might appear before the Lord Returns) are facing, it is helpful constantly to refresh our minds about what God’s infallible Word tells us about the place and power of prayer. (Even as I write the phrase ‘the power of prayer’, I am reminded of the wise answer given by a certain ‘prayer warrior’ when asked a leading question in an interview, “Do you believe in the power of prayer?”, answered, “No I don’t. I believe in the power of God, and therefore I pray”!).
As one who was involved in the very beginnings of the development of what we now know and love as ‘Shire Christian School’, I can testify that the faithful prayer of many has played a leading role in producing the blessing that our School is to us and our families. I say to my shame that when my wife and I came home from the first meeting of the people in the Reformed Church who presented their vision for a Christian School and, in spite of our admiration for and whole-hearted support of their ‘vision’, we both ‘did our sums’ at a very human level and concluded that this project, ambitious as it was, was never going to get off the ground! If only we had brought the ‘prayer factor’ into our ‘sums’!
Just reflecting on half a century of God’s goodness to us and his provision of our present dedicated, competent Christian staff and our wonderful facilities, along with the outcomes they are producing in our children and grandchildren and therefore in our community, I cannot help but to keep on praying constantly and earnestly into the future. Why didn’t I take a firmer grip on the promises of Psalm 1 when we decided to adopt it as the ‘School Psalm’? I am now, with God’s help, trusting in the relevance of Paul’s word to the Philippians: “In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:4-6).
Rev Bruce Christian