Article for the York Weekly
by
Rev. Rich Knight
January 2002

 I’d like to share a few thoughts with you about prayer. I wonder if that makes you feel a little uncomfortable already? It might because many people of faith feel guilty about their prayer lives. We feel we don’t pray often enough, long enough, and well enough, as if there were one correct way to pray.

 In many circles, "Sweet Hour of Prayer" is a beloved hymn, but I wonder how many of us have ever spent a "sweet hour" in prayer. I think I have three times, but each time it was in a large group with a leader. Left alone, I have trouble sitting still for more than five minutes. This tendency is not conducive to rest and relaxation, nor to a healthy prayer life.

 If you have trouble sitting still for a sweet hour of prayer, and if you would like to feel less guilty about your prayer life and pray more often, I have good news for you! The good news is that our prayers do not have to be long, wordy, and eloquent, and sound like they should be printed in a worship book somewhere!

 The Bible offers us some help in the book of Nehemiah. His story in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Book of Nehemiah, mentions six times that Nehemiah turns to God in prayer. The first of these prayers, in chapter one, takes 1 minute, 20 seconds to pray. Now if I said to you, "Wow! I just had a beautiful time with God. I prayed for 1 minute and 20 seconds," would you think of me as a spiritual giant? I don’t think so. But prayer doesn’t have to be long to be effective and intimate. The Lord’s Prayer, the prayer that Jesus gave his followers to pray, takes me 22 seconds to pray (OK, so I’m into timing prayers. We all have our quirks, you know). But that’s it - the model prayer that Jesus gave us takes just 22 seconds to pray! The book of Nehemiah contains five other occasions where Nehemiah prays what are called, "short prayers," or "flash prayers." They are prayers on the run. In chapter six Nehemiah is having difficulty rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem, so he prays, "Lord, strengthen my hands." A two-second prayer, but God answered it!

 The Desert Fathers were 5th Century monks who lived in Egypt and Syria. They took Jesus seriously when he pointed out in Matthew 6 that God is not interested in long, babbling prayers. The Desert Fathers believed that the best way to stay in touch with God was to pray frequent short prayers throughout the day, just like Nehemiah!

 One Desert Father, Abba Macarius wrote:
"There is no need at all to make long discourses; it is enough to say, ‘Lord as you will, and as you know, have mercy.’ And if the conflict grows fiercer, say: ‘Lord, help!’"

 So try some short prayers today. When you think about someone who is hurting or struggling, pray for them. When your thoughts turn to the terrorist attacks, pray for our President, our service men and women, for our nation, and for peace, harmony and justice in our world. As you drive by a school, pray for the children inside. These one or two sentence prayers are not fancy, but they’re heard!

 Please understand that I do believe in and practice other forms of prayer. I find Christian meditation, being still in God’s presence and meditating upon a verse from Scripture inspiring. I’ve even been known to occasionally give a long-winded pastoral prayer on a Sunday morning! But throughout each day, grace before meals and short prayers as I go about my day help keep me in touch with God. So why not give it a try? My guess is you already have and just didn’t know that biblical giants like Nehemiah and Jesus endorsed it!

Rich Knight