I’m very much enjoying a selection of Jonathan Fletcher’s pastoral letters to the congregation at Emmanuel Church Wimbledon. I shared with the Prayer Gathering this week a slightly adapted version of one called ‘How to come to God in prayer’, as he reflects on the Lord’s Prayer. It’s so good, it’s worth a wider audience:
• We come as children to our loving Father – quietly confident that he cares for us and wants the very best for us.
• We come as worshippers to the God of heaven, our God – longing for his name to be hallowed and adored, and grieved when it is dishonoured or ignored.
• We come as subjects to our great King – loyally concerned for the advance of his kingdom in the hearts of men and women everywhere, starting with our own.
• We come as servants to our faithful Master – gladly obeying his will revealed in Scripture and anxious to see it done, while humbly accepting his sovereign will.
• We come as recipients to our generous Giver – utterly dependent on him every day for every breath, every heartbeat and every crumb.
• We come as sinners to our wonderful Saviour – day by day needing and enjoying more and more of his astounding grace for our continuing waywardness and rebellion.
• We come as wayward pilgrims to our sure Guide and our sovereign Protector – humbly, trembling, urgently asking to be kept from temptation and evil.