PRAYER

1 Kings 19

11 And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 

12 And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound,

A low whisper. [a] 

13 And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

So many of us are intimidated by the idea of prayer. We have an idea in our mind of what the right kind of prayer should sound like.  Usually there is a person in our past who epitomized this idea of what a prayer should sound like: it was eloquent, followed the right form, maybe most importantly in our mind it was long. While there is a place for prayers like that. Some of the most powerful prayers

we can have are about saying less rather than more. In that emptiness and silence, we might just hear that still small voice.

Pastor Ian Butler