Being a non-anxious presence in the world

Kia ora whānau,

This week’s message continued on the theme of living out a restored relationship with God. In past weeks we focused on acknowledging God and listening to Him through scripture, silence, and community. As our roots are going deep, one of the fruits we will produce is peace, or in other words, we will “be a non-anxious presence in the world.”

How can we be a non-anxious presence in a very anxiety-ridden, fearful, angry world? We could just stuff it down, pretend to be okay, and suffer in silence until someday when we explode or slowly leak (according to our various personalities). Thankfully, this isn’t the way forward. The practices offered to us are tools given by God for our relationship with him, others, and ourselves. Prayer is a practical way of being honest with God. It’s a safe and entirely appropriate way to express our full range of emotions … especially the messy ones.

In recent years something called “positive affirmation” has become quite popular. The idea is that saying something positive about what you want to become or to achieve makes it more likely to happen. Scientific research has even found this to be true. God has known this to be true a lot longer. When we pray we call attention to what we believe about God. God already knows our thoughts, but saying these aloud builds the relationship with him and builds our faith. And yet, prayer is so much more amazing than positive affirmations because God is listening and responding in love and power. His power and our faith change us and the world around us. We’re participating in life changing conversation.

As we lean into a season of 24/7 prayer it’s helpful to consider the prayer combos available to us. We get to pray without ceasing as a church and put intentional rhythms in our individual lives. We get to say “fancy” prayers using liturgy, Psalms, songs, poetry, etc. We get to say “plain” prayers by letting loose what may come out of our hearts and minds for ourselves, our loved ones, our enemies, and our world. We can pray at home or walking down the street for 7 minutes or for an hour in the chapel. The point with all these options is not that there are so many, it’s that we can choose to pray and stick with it.

In Christ,

Wendy