Sometimes praying is simply living each day.

The momentum of Advent, 12 days of Christmas and Epiphany are behind us and its all too easy to want to simply hibernate. Activity feels beyond us, bleary eyes stare back at us in the mirror. Isn’t new year about new starts but nothing feels new, all feels jaded and as if we are walking knee high in mud. Good intentions haven’t been followed through. Wounds, issues, struggles we tried to lay down over the festive season were waiting for us after we closed the door to the decorations. Did Christ’s coming really change anything?

Christ’s coming has changed everything but in the moment it can be hard to believe. What I have come to realise though is that sometimes prayer is simply moving through each day. Its not about words, its not about seeing answer after answer. Its simply living by faith in a cloudy haze of fog, knowing that there is more, knowing that Christ is coming again, knowing He doesn’t stay in that manager as a baby waiting for next Christmas’ nativity services.

My prayer over this month for those pastoring and shepherding others is to keep putting that foot in front of the other even if it is simply to wear a well worn path between the kettle and your chair, to rest, to sleep, to read, to sleep some more and know you are not alone. To call someone else and spur one another on not in frantic activity but in noticing the colours of the sky, of the lenghting of days, of the buds coming. Christ is at work in us, He knows we are weary, He knows His strength is sufficient and He knows what He is doing and needs to be done. It’s not down to us.