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A Message From the Senior Minister

Pray Without Ceasing
Rev. Jacqui Lewis, Ph.D.

When we don’t know what to pray, the Spirit prays on our behalf, in sighs too deep for words.

These are words Paul wrote to the church at Rome. What do we pray right now? It is summer, I am on vacation, but writing this article for our newsletter. It is a gorgeous day and tomorrow John and I will go to Florida, where we will write, run on the beach, swim and pray about the year to come. Flying is a scary thing, and we will pray together before we go.

What do we pray? Recently, excellent police work foiled a plot in which terrorists allegedly planned to fashion bombs out of ingredients borne on the plane in everyday liquids, like shampoo or hair gel, and blow up transatlantic flights. I prayed sighs of disbelief (when will this all end?) and sighs of relief (it is great that these guys got caught!!).

What do we pray? As I look around our world, it feels to me that so many dots are connected: the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (how easy it is to forget THAT theater of war); the bombing of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in 2001; our foreign policy; and ongoing ethnicity-based conflict.

When will there be peace? What do we pray? My brother Ron is in Rhode Island this summer getting a Masters Degree and training for is promotion to full-bird colonel. He is 41 years old, father to two children, great husband to my sister, (in law is truly parenthetical) Denise and he is one of my best friends. He is a faithful Christian who takes very seriously his role as leader to the men and women he commands. He sees himself as a warrior for peace. A helicopter pilot, Ron lost only four men in his tour of duty in Iraq; he is visibly pained when he talks about the loss of life in the war. What do we pray? What does it mean to pray for peace?

Scripture tells us to ask and it shall be given to us; do we keep asking over and over again? Some faithful people are wondering: Is God listening? Does prayer change God’s mind? Prayer changes things, our ancestors tell us, and we ourselves are witnesses to how that is true. Lives are saved, health is restored, our children come home safe from wars, and we have peace in our spirits, even if the body ails. Prayer changes things—we know from experience and from the experience of others.

Yet sometimes we pray, and we do not get the answer we want. People die, relationships end, jobs are lost and not so easily replaced with new work. Or, it seems God is taking a LONG time to respond to us. What do we pray, and why?

Jesus taught his disciples to pray a simple prayer, one that asks God to provide bread for today, to have God’s will be done on earth as in heaven, to deliver us from evil. Sometimes, that prayer does not feel like what we want to say; maybe not specific enough.

What do we pray? Psychologist Ann Ulanov says that prayer is primary speech—talk with God that is like our first language as developing children. As our parents understood our first babbling, so also God understands our prayers, even when we feel inarticulate, or we don’t quite know what to say. When we don’t know what to say, God’s spirit, like a parent translating her child’s babbling into communication, translates the desires of our hearts and prays on our behalf.

What do we pray? Sometimes, I don’t know either. But I pray, I sigh, I weep, I empty my head of my own voice and try to hear God’s. That kind of prayer is not asking God for a list of wishes, it is just waiting for God to pray FOR me, in those sighs too deep for words. And today, right now, looking around our world and feeling a bit lost, and unsure, and overwhelmed, that kind of prayer changes ME, so that I might be quiet in my spirit and discover God, even in the chaos.

So, dear friends, sigh. Breathe. Cry. Pray. Feel God with you. Like the face of a parent that will never leave you for long, God is with you. Constant. Faithful. Praying WITH you, FOR you.

Click here to read past messages from the Senior Minister