St Aidans
 

Praying together using Ps 23

Morning Prayer from the Prayer Book - ANZPB p.35

Evening Prayer from the Prayer Book - ANZPB p.35

We can often think about prayer as a shopping list – going to God and asking him to do this, this and this. But prayer is so much more than that – it’s a relationship! It’s about opening our hearts to allow God to fill our lives with his presence, his wisdom and his love. Whatever we are bringing to God – our joys or our sorrows, our hope or our despair – nothing is ever lost with God. He hears all of our prayers. And when we pray with open hearts, we deepen our relationship with him. In this session we explore what it means to pray and how you can get started if you've never tried before – or if you need a bit of a refresher, which we all do from time to time! *** You can find the full series of Exploring Prayer here: https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/exploring-prayer I’d love to know how you get on, so do let me know in the comments. Blessings, ++Justin

How do we pray when our lives – or the world – has gone wrong? So much prayer that we find in the Bible – particularly in the Psalms – is lament, sorrow, rage and protest. It’s a normal way of praying for Jesus as well. He protests about injustice and cruelty. He stands up to people. He calls out to God for change. He weeps at the graveside of a friend. So in this session, we talk about how we are honest with Jesus Christ and say to him, “This is not right!” Those are the prayers that go straight to the heart of God. Those are the prayers Jesus collects in his arms and absorbs – as he absorbed all sorrow on the cross. He is with us always. *** You can find the full series of Exploring Prayer here: https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/exploring-prayer I’d love to know how you get on, so do let me know in the comments. Blessings, ++Justin