Tom Harpur, in the dedication to his book Prayer wrote: The Hidden Fire includes "all those who... have struggled hard to live more spiritually and who... feel a great need to discover more about praying."
Those sentiments struck a resonance in my mind as I am sure they will for many others. Harpur's book explores his own growth in prayer and provides practical suggestions for strengthening one's prayer life. He includes prayers that we can use in our prayer life and his exploration of the Psalms as prayer is particularly helpful.
There are many books on prayer similar to Harpur's that provide guides towards a more intentional prayer life. The difficulty for many of us including myself is not the lack of intention but the struggle with the discipline in prayer life.
In an article in the Anglican Fellowship of Prayer Newsletter, Summer/04, Herbert O'Driscoll writes:
"As time goes by I am becoming more and more aware that all of life is prayer... there are times and places where I gather with others to pray, but spreading out from those places and times... there are moments and opportunities for offering every conceivable aspect of life in prayer. ... To know this, to live life with a sense of the presence of God, is quite simply and naturally to make every moment and circumstance the moment and place of spontaneous prayer."
And as he writes at the end of the article "I suspect that this is where most of us are in prayer - Thank God!"
How we pray and sustain our spiritual life in prayer is a life long journey, one that is worth the ups and downs, the high moments and the low and the sustaining faith in between.
The Anglican Fellowship of Prayer is an international organisation dedicated to encourage prayer in the life of the Church, to be a teaching resource in the life of prayer and to build links between praying people.
For more information on the Anglican Fellowship of Prayer email pappavoo@telus.net