Praying

There was also a prophet, Anna... She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. (Luke 2: 36-37)

Fasting and prayer day and night? Presumably it was not total fasting every day and night or else she would not have reached the ripe old age of 84!

However, I think that may be to miss the point. Here was a woman who was utterly dedicated to prayer. Year after year after long year she prayed, and kept praying, and went on praying.

Did she ever waver in her dedication? Did she ever wonder if this was the best way to spend her time? Did she ever doubt that it was worth it? (See yesterday’s post!)

How would we have regarded her? How would I have regarded her?

A bit of a weirdo? A religious nutter? Slightly unhinged?

I don’t know for sure, but I do know that what passes for prayer in my ‘devotional life’ is but a pathetically pale reflection and dismal distant echo of this kind of praying. 

When I think of Anna in the Temple for all these years, when I remember the prayerful cries of psalmists and prophets down through the centuries, when I consider all those who pleaded with God and petitioned him for Messiah to come and (unlike Anna) did not live to see their prayers answered, I am deeply challenged... yet I am not sure much truly changes in my prayer life.

Every year, this season of Advent reminds me that praying can be a way of life for some folks, a constant state of being, a disciplined commitment... and every Advent I resolve to do something about my own prayer life... and when next Advent comes around I find that not a lot has changed.

It is not that I don’t pray, let me hasten to add! But I wonder if Anna would recognise what I describe as prayer (or what most of us think of as prayer) as being anything like what she was doing for all these long years.