Let’s begin today by leaning further into our Term 2 focus: that PRAYER is at the centre of our lives with God. Within the whole school community, we will be looking at several Psalms through our Monday Devotions, to encourage one another and focus on the word as a College.
Our hope for this term’s theme, as a community, is that we all come to see Psalms as the centrepiece of God’s heart and message in the Bible. The books and verses in the Psalms are creative expressions of our emotions to God, expressed through prayers, poems, and songs. As the largest book in the Bible, the Psalms reflect every human emotion as a cry or conversation with our Father in Heaven.
When we begin to recognise that prayer is an essential human need, we naturally start to devote time and focus to it. However, our daily experience often leads us to believe that life is too busy and taking time to pray interferes with our obligations. Jesus emphasised the importance of prayer by placing it at the centre of His sermon, highlighting its necessity in our lives.
Whether we realise it or not, prayer is essential and life-giving to our inner person, our spirit. Just as our bodies need food and air to survive, our spirit needs prayer. To illustrate, let’s imagine a man who is starving. He isn’t going to walk past a fully loaded buffet because he is too busy or something else is more important. NOTHING, not busyness, boredom or awkwardness would stop him from RUNNING to what he knows will save his life.
If prayer and feeding on God’s Word are vital but aren’t part of our daily lives, it’s not due to a lack of time. Instead, it may be because we have lost our hunger and don’t realise how impoverished our spirits become without a connection to God. The good news is that when we connect with God through prayer, He fills us with spiritual richness.
Peter Chase
College Chaplain
