Garry spoke tonight on the ‘growing pains’ which are an inevitable part of maturing, focussing on the topic of prayer. God is here with us and is listening to us, but so often, we overcomplicate [thinking it has to be done in a certain way and a certain place, at certain times and even in certain clothes! But if we are to ‘pray continually’ (1 Thess 5:17), it can’t be that complicated!

The disciples of Jesus asked him to teach them to pray (Luke 11, Matthew 6) and not only did Jesus give them the Lord’s Prayer as a framework for prayer, he also demonstrated to them on many occasions his own prayer life. In the Lord’s Prayer, we see a pattern for prayer, a pattern which includes prayer, a desire for God’s reign, requests for His provision and for forgiveness and protection.

One of the major problems we have with prayer is that there is rarely an audible response. This does not mean that God has not heard us or that he does not answer. We need to pray regardless of feelings, secure in the fact that God has promised to answer us. Jesus gave examples of how to pray and how not to pray (see Matt 6:5-6, where prayer is not simply virtue sugnalling or a show.) Prayer needs to be sincere and should also focus on others (see 2 Cor 1:8-11).We can help others through our prayers (as a church, for example, we are praying for Fredrick and Reeba in India, the children we support in Haiti, India and Uganda; Becky Murray and her One By One charity and have also been praying for Africa’s Gift and Christians Against Poverty this year.) We need to pray for our work in the community (the Parent & Toddler group, coffee morning and fun days). Praying in the Spirit (Eph 6:18) will lead us to pray for other people, lifting their situations before God.

1 Tim 2:1-3 urges us to pray for those in authority over us – MPs, councillors, leaders of groups, managers and team leders. But we must also learn to pray for those who are our enemies (see Matt 5:45, Luke 6:35). As we learn to pray in all these situations, we will become mature. Praying is never something we can stop doing; it is always something we need to work at. But the best way to grow in prayer is simply to pray!

Joseph reminds us that very often dreams have to die before they can be raised to life again by God. Jesus said to His disciples, ‘Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.’ (John 12:24) For Joseph, circumstances after he speaks of his adolescent dreams soon take a turn for the worse, when his brothers plot first of all to kill him and then decide to sell him into slavery. (Gen 37:12-36) His comfortable life as the beloved of his father is drastically brought to an end; he is sold into Potiphar’s household and ends up in Egypt. (Gen 39:1) Later, things get even worse when Potiphar’s wife makes up lies about him to satisfy her thwarted plans to seduce him; ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’, as Shakespeare said! Joseph is unjustly thrown into prison for a crime he did not commit. (Gen 39:7-23) Far from having people bow down to him, his life seems in ruins. There seems no hope of prosperity, no prospect even of justice.

But the God of miracles is not absent, even when we cannot see Him or understand what is going on. With the benefit of hindsight and knowing the end of this story, we know that every setback is actually a step further towards the fulfilment of Joseph’s dreams. What we see in the life of Joseph is the jigsaw pieces being fitted together to make a coherent whole. We see God moving people into place to save many people, to save His chosen people, the Israelites. We see miracle after miracle of God’s providence and foreknowledge. Joseph only saw disaster, disappointment and the frustration of injustice, but he flourished even in dire circumstances because God was with him. (Gen 39:2, 22-23) He learned to serve God faithfully wherever he was rather than always yearning to be somewhere else. This ability to work for God in the mundane while waiting for God to do the miraculous is one the hallmarks of Christian maturity. Paul puts it like this: ‘Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.’ (1 Thess 5:16-18) When we’re called to wait in the mundane, remember that how you wait can be a testimony in itself; you yourself can become God’s miracle.

Traditionally, we think of miracles as God’s intervention in human history, often in remarkable and sudden form. The dictionary definition of the word ‘miracle’ says a miracle is ‘an extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws’ and is therefore attributed to a divine agency (i.e. to God.) There is no mention of timescales in this definition, but often, when we think of miracles, we think of God doing something suddenly or swiftly: a person being healed in an instant, a crowd being fed from hardly any food, a person being delivered of an impure spirit very quickly, water being turned into wine at a wedding feast.

There’s no doubt that God works like this, but sometimes we see that miracles can take a little time to be worked out. Joseph is an example to us of this.

The story of Joseph (Genesis 37-50) looks at a thirteen-year period from the age of seventeen to thirty in the life of one of Jacob’s sons. Jacob had a complicated family, with sons born to two different wives and two concubines; Joseph was the son of his favourite wife, Rachel, and was not well-liked by his brothers because of the favouritism Jacob showed him. Joseph was a dreamer, someone to whom God spoke, but this just added to his unpopularity, and so despite having received promises of blessing and authority, he spent much of this period of his life facing difficult circumstances, being sold into slavery by his brothers and ending up unjustly imprisoned.

There seemed nothing miraculous about much of this period. Joseph had to learn to serve God and others faithfully in the mundane, probably wondering when God would ever move! But ultimately God did move, and Joseph ended up as second-in-command to Pharaoh, in a position of great responsibility where his actions would lead to many people (including his own family) being saved from death through famine. We see how God uses every situation and circumstance of our lives to further His purposes and how He works for the good in everything. (Rom 8:28) If you’re still waiting for God’s miracle in your life, take heart from Joseph and stay faithful, serving God in the everyday and the mundane as you wait for God to move in the miraculous.

Yesterday we took 100 people from the Parent & Toddler group families to Gulliver’s Valley near Sheffield, a theme park with something for everyone under 10! It was lovely to have so many families join us (so many we needed to hire 2 coaches!) and to have different generations all joining together to have fun.

Waiting to get on the coach

On the coach

The theme park has something for everyone: characters to meet, shows to watch, animals to feed, parks, roller coasters, fairground rides and water rides, cars and trains, a building and digging zone and dinosaurs, to name just a few. It was great to see families playing together, all ages working well together and everyone having a good time.

GPCC was happy to subsidise this trip as part of our engagement with the community; our mission is to be ‘with God in the community, with God for the community.’ Thank you to all who came along, to all who organised the trip and to Oakleaf Coaches and Gulliver’s Valley staff for making this a great day out.