Henri Nouwen once said, ‘I am deeply convinced that the necessity of prayer, and to pray unceasingly, is not as much based on our desire for God as on God’s desire for us. It is God’s passionate pursuit of us that calls us to prayer. ‘ And the highly respected C.S. Lewis stated, ‘I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping.’

When you read statements about prayer by those saints who have gone before us, from the late beloved Brennan Manning to the radical Dietrich Bonhoeffer all the way back to St Patrick and the Celtic church, who viewed prayer the same as drawing breath, there is a pattern of thought, a single red thread that weaves its way through the years.

And that red thread is this: That prayer, real prayer, is not something that we do but is rather a part of who we are as those who have committed themselves to an eternal relationship with the same God to whom we pray.

Yet how often do we treat prayer like a box to be ticked, another Christian expectation to be met, another meeting to be dutifully at? (I am speaking more around our corporate prayer than individual prayer though certainly the same question applies) Even our weeks of prayer and prayer events? How much of the motivation behind those things come from what Nouwen and Lewis state above? And how much of the motivation is about keeping up with the Christian trends, making certain our church is maintaining its image of being Spirit-filled, “edgy”, and doing “what the Church should be doing”?

Has prayer become just another program? Another box to be ticked?

These questions have been swimming round in my mind today. My job, my entire life it often feels, revolves around inspiring individuals and bodies of people, churches, to be praying. In recent months I have put a lot of energy (and prayer) in particular into attempting to inspire churches across Scotland to engage with the global wave of prayer Thy Kingdom Come.

I often find I have to pause, step back and remind myself why I do what I do. Why I personally pray even. Read some great quotes like those above, re-read Scriptures on prayer, re-read a 24-7 Prayer book like Red Moon Rising or a book by or about the lives of the saints of old.

And I find that, even in my excitement and anticipation that events like the events around Thy Kingdom Come are happening, a nervousness creeps in. A nervousness that for some of us, such events have subtly, unconsciously become another box to tick.

And why does that make me nervous?

I guess because when I read Scripture, and when I read historical accounts, the prayers that God responds to time and time again are the prayers driven by hunger, deep hunger for Him, for His presence, to know Him better, for our world to know Him as He truly is, hunger to be empowered by His presence to go and boldly share the Hope within us, like in Acts 4:31. And the one prayer that Jesus seems most unimpressed with was the one that was motivated by “box-ticking”, by concern with fulfilling a role, meeting an expectation of image.

My deep longing, for myself and for the Body of Christ across Scotland, is to know that deep hunger that drives us to our knees and that our prayer meetings, prayer weeks and Thy Kingdom Come prayer evetns would be motivated out of that hunger. Alan Scott from Causeway Vineyard once said, “If you’re hungry, get ready – the Father is preparing a feast for you!” I think the Father longs to prepare a feast for the Church in Scotland, but we need to have an appetite first, we need to be hungry.

So as we approach Thy Kingdom Come, our prayer meetings and prayer weeks, may Holy Spirit search our hearts and bring us back to what prayer is – a relationship of love with Him, a breathing in of His person and power and an agreeing with all that is in His heart. And may our hunger for Him grow to such capacity that He cooks up the greatest feast Scotland has yet experienced!