power in my prayer

For the last few weeks I've had the children’s Christian song by Dave Godfrey called “power in my prayer” stuck in my head. It goes like this: “there’s power in my prayer, there’s power in my prayer, James 5:16 you know what I mean, there’s power in my prayer.”  So I decided to look up the verse in the bible.  James 5:16 states “therefore, confess your sin to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”  The song and verse is clearly telling me to pray as it holds great power. But why do I need to pray? Surely if God is omniscient (all knowing) then he must know everything I want and need, without needing to say anything.   Anyway, even when I do pray it doesn't mean I get what I ask for, so how is it so powerful?   

                 I began answering that question by acknowledging that am 100% certain that God is all -knowing and all -power full and therefore doesn't need our help for anything.   But God asks us to pray for our own sake, he wants us to build a relationship with him. Like when a father asks his young child to help him with his DIY project, the father is perfectly capable of doing this task alone and in fact the child could be more of a hindrance to him, but he uses the task as a way of bonding with his child, in the same way being involved with the work that God is doing through prayer, helps us to bound with God.   We are closer to God as we are involved in what he is doing.   We must also remember that as God is all-knowing and we have limited knowledge, he knows far more then we about what we need and therefor e we should trust in him to provide and not come to him with a wish list that we expect to be for filled, after all, the joy in prayer isn’t the things we get out, but building a relationship with God and working alongside him.  

Once I get a song stuck in my head I have to listen to it so that I will sing it no more, and so I looked it up online. By doing this I was reminded of anther one of Dave Godfrey’s   songs and a time when his children stood at the front of my church and sang this: “as I trust in you, you give me peace within, so I look into your face and say, daddy I need you” for me that’s how you should pray, seek God for guidance and support in all, for he is our Daddy listening and comforting,   there really is power in my prayer.   

Abby Clark is on the yfcone eta drama program

She is based in Radcliffe with the Methodist church

Journeys

Have you ever had to travel on a car journey with no map or sat nav? Hiked across the countryside with no compass? Or even been lost somewhere, with no one to ask for directions?

It’s often hard to get lost in the 21^st century with smart phones and good road signs, but in life sometimes we can feel like we are on a journey and have no clue where we are going, and if we did, how we would get there.

This thought of journeying has been something I've been thinking a lot about recently and has made me remember how God has led me over the past couple of years. When I stop and think about where I am now and how I got here, there is so much I can be thankful to God for. If someone had of told me when I was 15 that I would be living in Nottingham, study a schools, youth and community degree and volunteering for NYfC I probably would have laughed at them. As at that point in time all I was interested in was carpentry.

It was only a few weeks ago that I shared in a rock solid group how God had been with me on my journey through life. I asked the group what they thought their journey looked like and gave them a picture with four different pathways. Each had a different obstacle or difficulty that might have affected the journey. But through this I asked them to draw their own path or life journey and show me if it had ups or downs, obstacles or diversions and maybe even if they recognized God journeying with them?

I have always found Abram’s call by God in Genesis 12 helpful, as it makes me put things into perspective and I can liken my story to his. You see God appears to Abram and without warning or explanation tells him to leave his home, his family and the land he knows because God has something better in store for him. Abram has this incredible ability to just obey without argument or complaint and leave with no map (or sat nav or smart phone), just relying on God to direct him as he travels.

Often when we don’t know where we are going it can be really scary, most of us like to be in control of our lives and be the ones to make decision about whether we turn left or right. I would personally like to challenge you to let God be in control. If Abram had never been willing to let God lead him, he would never have become one of the great fore fathers in the Bible and if I had never said yes to God when he asked me to go into youth work I would never had experienced his blessing and provision and would probably still be in Leicester working as a carpenter.

Jeremiah 29:11 - For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Simon Bentley is on his first year placement at NYfC

He is studying Theology and Schools work at MCYM