S1E3: On the accident of distance

Let’s be honest: most days, life feels less like a serene walk with God and more like trying to assemble a particularly fiddly piece of flat-pack furniture while the instructions are being chewed by the dog and you’ve misplaced the allen key.

In the relentless bustle of modern family life, the notion of “quiet time” can feel like a bit of a tall order. For a tired mother or father, the distance between the kitchen sink and the “quiet conversation of prayer” can feel like a very long way indeed…

Holy sweat and the joyful agony of prayer.

Let us be honest with one another: prayer is often rather harder than the hymnbooks suggest. We have all been there – starting a prayer only to find our minds have wandered to the shopping list. If this sounds familiar, take heart. You are not a failure; you are simply human. In Colossians 4:12, we meet Epaphras, who was ‘always struggling’ in prayer. The Greek word is agonizomai – the root of our word ‘agony’. But this wasn’t mere suffering; it was an athletic contest, a wrestling match in the arena of intercession. Discover why there is profound joy to be found in the holy sweat of persistent prayer…