Prayer of Reflection

Isaiah 45:3-13,

Psalm 145:1-13,

John 4:1-26

How has God worked in your life? It’s an important question to ask and yet I think too often we don’t know. One of the most important things to my faith life has been a kind of reflective prayer. This is the special time of prayer where we look back or look around and ask God to speak through that reflection and to show us where and how he has worked. This becomes an important practice, because God is always present and working. The problem is it can be hard to recognize him in the moment. As we look back in prayer God can begin to open our eyes to see how God has, is and will work. Think about this, we all want to see God more, we all want to know what God has planned for our life, we all want to know his hope and love. A simple way to see and know this more is to reflect on where God has already worked. And guess what, God will use this to open your eyes to see him more.

I probably had an easier in-road to this kind of reflective prayer. One of the things you do as an actor is you are supposed to plum the breadth of your experiences so that at any moment you can relate what your character is going through to something you have experienced in life. This meant that in some ways it was my job to reflect and dig into my past. Now, I wasn’t doing this kind of prayerful reflection as an actor, but when I came to faith in a new way these pivotal memories were so clear and fleshed out in my head that it actually didn’t take a lot of time for me to see where God had been working. As I reflected on my past and what God has done both in the good times and the bad, some pretty big things kept coming to the surface - things like God’s plan for my life, God’s gracious giving, his forgiving love, my utter dependence on God, the lacking life when lacking God, the redemption and power of God to work through my limited life, the patience of God and so much more. The interesting consequence is that I began to come to terms, experientially, with some of the things that I felt were myths or exaggerations in the bible. This fundamentally changed my faith.

In fact, this kind of reflective prayer was one of the things that brought me to serve in the church and eventually to the priesthood. Here’s a very short version of the story. God gave me a dream where silence fell on the world. I remember the dream felt somehow realer than real. I had to write it down and even throughout the day I couldn’t shake it. That day I was going to a pitch meeting where young writers pitch their film ideas to directors, cinematographers, actors and more. I was going as an actor to see if there would a good opportunity, but this dream wouldn’t leave my thoughts. So, I quickly scribbled some notes for a pitch and offered the idea. Suddenly, I was surrounded by people with decades of experience wanting to make this film a reality. Once we had produced this film and it had its public screening, I was being interviewed about the idea and where it came from and suddenly I remembered that I was once deaf. At the age of 6, after a stupid accident on the playground I was left with severe punctured ear drums and no hearing - hence the very real overwhelming silence I experienced in the dream.

It was weird that through all my reflecting this memory had escaped me. I called my parents to fill the gaps. They told me a story about how after a year and a half, a lot of prayer and beating the odds again and again, I had miraculously regained all of my hearing. This led me on a spiral of prayerful reflection on my life up to this point. My life was so wrapped up with hearing, my voice, my singing, storytelling, music, dancing and more. A big question kept circling around in my thoughts: if God has given me so much, why haven’t I been willing to give a little back. Then after even further reflection, adding into my reflection a childhood speech impediment and dyslexia, I began to realize that God had purposed my hearing and my voice for something and that I’m meant to use it.

Now obviously, God stepped into my life in some obvious ways. I had the unshakable dream, the lining up of events, the miracle, the faithful parents and the time to reflect. Yet, I would guess that God has stepped into all our lives in obvious ways. Have you ever had a dream or nightmare you just couldn’t shake? Have you ever had the seemingly perfect line of events, or even seemingly unperfect? Have you ever had something happen to you that you couldn’t completely explain? You definitely have had faithful people in your life and time to look back. Trust me, God has worked definitively in your life.

I have no doubt that God is working in your life in both obvious and unobvious ways. This is why reflective prayer is so important. We all need to be better at recognizing where God is working. The more we recognize his work in the past, the more we will see it in the present. The more we see God’s faithful love, the more we will be able to trust it in our lives. The more we know his glory, the more our lives will be filled with joy and worship.

There is a long practice throughout the bible of telling and retelling God’s story and how he enters ours - so that we can remember and so that others can meet God. Our Psalm today speaks of the need and importance of reflecting on what God has done. Let me highlight a little:

Vs. 5 On the glorious splendour of your majesty,

and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.

This reiterates the need and desire to meditate on God’s work and character.

Vs. 6-7 The might of your awesome deeds shall be proclaimed,

and I will declare your greatness.

They shall celebrate the fame of your abundant goodness,

and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.

As we reflect and retell the story of God's work, fame is a natural consequence as we and others begin to know God’s goodness more and more.

Vs. 11-12 They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom,

and tell of your power,

to make known to all people your mighty deeds,

and the glorious splendour of your kingdom.

Now, as more and more people tell stories about God and the goodness of his Kingdom, guess what? The more people that tell God’s story, the more people will come to know God’s work in their lives and the more people will begin to experience his Kingdom as present.

Let me give you a small sense of the way this has worked in my life. I’ve gotten to know a lot of God’s story through the bible. I’ve read these stories, I’ve told them and heard others tell them so many times. I’ve taken time to chew on the stories and let them live in me. Through this I have gotten better and better at understanding how they relate to me and my story. I’ve gotten better and better at seeing how God has and is working. Along with that, I have had the privilege of hearing hundreds of faith stories. Every time seeing God at work in people’s lives. Every time I get to meet God more and more. Now, through that clarity, at least mostly, I get the privilege of sharing God through my stories and hoping that more and more people will see God at work in their lives too. Telling the stories of God through Scripture and in our lives is an important way that we pass on our faith.

The Bible itself is a telling and retelling of the special ways in which God has worked, spoken and come close throughout history. We recognize something special about reading Scripture though. As we read the Word of God, as we read the numerous ways that God has made himself known, as we read about God coming close, we actually meet the word of God, we actually come to know God, and realize that he is close. This is the power of Scripture. We meet God in the stories as those words live in our speaking.

A large amount of this power, to meet and make God known remains in our personal stories of God, especially the more we have taken time to let God reveal himself. Even if we were to look at this in a worldly way, let's say I tell a story of how God worked and I tell it to someone who was there at that time. They literally have an opportunity to see where God had been working right around them. Or if they weren’t there, they have an opportunity to see how God had been shaping me or the situations around me. But of course, it is more than that, because as the Word become flesh, God uses our words, especially prayerful ones, to enter in, be known and seen. Throughout the history of Christianity, there is a belief that there is power in the name of Jesus. I agree. There is something about saying the name of Jesus, even thinking it, that makes me want to rejoice, or kneel, or smile, but I think it is more than that too. I think saying the name of Jesus invites him into the moment, like any prayer, and if you or the other person is willing to listen Jesus will speak/act/live in that moment in a special way. And this is just his name, imagine what our stories of encounters with Jesus can do.

So, I encourage you to reflect on the stories of God. Start with Scripture and the moments where God has purposefully and obviously made himself known. This is why we often recommend starting with Jesus in the gospels. As you read and prayerfully reflect through the stories of the Bible, start to relate it to your life and memories, see where the elements overlap or differ. Invite and ask other Christians to tell their stories of God’s work. Pray over their stories too. Then keep drawing in more of your story. And offer it up to God and give him the time and space to show you how he has been shaping it all. Remember that God knit you together in your mother’s womb. Remember that he knew all of your days before any came to be - Psalm 139. Remember that God knows the plans he has for you - “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” Jeremiah 29:11. Now, let us take the time to reflectively pray over that work, so that we might see it and join it in the present. AMEN

Reflecting on what God has done.

Instill trust

Instill worship

Pass on the faith

Reflecting on our life

Discern truth

Discern what God is doing

Discern what God has done

Discern what we have done and need to do

Reflect on creation

See the character of God

Reflect on his power, care and intelligence

Instill worship

We often need God - or the voice of God to enter in through someone else to show us the truth of the situation or history.