Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise.?Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.?The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven.?Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.?

Happy New Year! I am pretty excited for 2018. I hope you are as well. For me, this is a year of learning to live more simply, to be healthier in the food our family eats, and to be present more in with the relationships I have in my life. And as I have thought about these various things, I realized for me the connection point is in my relationship with God. I think about how the Wise Men were guided by a star to bring gifts to Jesus. My guess is they didn?t just look up at the sky and go, ?oh a star, that could mean something, let?s see!? But that they were men of deep and devote faith, who had been in prayer to God about what was to come and what they were to do. The Wise Men were dedicated to finding the truth, to understanding their faith, and pursued God in their lives. I am pretty sure all of that came through their prayer life. For me, one of the places I always need to revisit and become more in-tuned with is my prayer life. That might not be true for all of us, but I am pretty sure most of us could use a tune-up regarding our prayer life and our connection with God. During the month of January, we are going to look at prayer as strategic, full of sighs, as spiritual warfare, and silence. We will talk through whether or not prayer works, if prayers are heard, answered and unanswered prayers, and more. My prayer for us as we walk through this month, is for all of us to develop a more strategic prayer life to reclaim the space and connection for God in our lives, our congregation, our community, and our world. Pray with me.??

Have you ever known a bridge engineer or builder? I have. My clerk of session in West Virginia, Jim Sothen, was a bridge engineer. He spent his life designer and engineering bridges in West Virginia. As he become well known in the bridge world for his engineer, he was invited to serve on bridge task forces in other parts of the United States. One of Jim?s favorite bridges was one of the last he designed. It was the bridge that took people over the Kanawha River as you crossed from Nitro into Charleston. It was originally a 4-lane bridge on the interstate. As we know from around here, as the population increases, traffic increases, traffic slows down, and people get upset. Jim and his team were asked to design the new bridge that would be 6-lanes. This would be a multi-year project and it was a huge bridge. And I drove over this bridge 3-4 times a week, watching the construction, wondering how the new bridge would ever stand, worried during the construction that it would fall, and so grateful when it was done and I could just drive over it and know I was safe! Jim shared with us during a session meeting how that bridge had caused more stress and anxiety in people than any other bridge he had designed. For the many, many years of the construction, Jim said his office received a minimum of 10-15 calls a day from people who were worried the bridge was going to collapse, the bridge workers were going to get hurt, or that the bridge would fall when it was finished. After about 18 months of these phone calls, Jim and his team decided to help with the perception that people had about the bridge collapsing. The bridge builders put up columns that looked like they were holding up the bridge during the time of it being built. They staggered the columns evenly throughout and it created an image of stability and safety. At that point, the phone calls from people decreased to 2-3 a week. People were grateful for the work that was being done and excited about the new safe bridge coming to town. Here is the funny part. The columns were completely for appearance. The columns were inexpensively created and installed to give people the perception that they were holding up the bridge. Jim shared that if the bridge had fallen, the columns would have fallen too! They would never have held up the bridge. But as Jim said, it was the illusion of support that gave people comfort in the bridge being built.??

I just loved that image of the bridge that is truly supportive, connected, grounded, and fills in the gaps; while the columns looked like they were supportive, connected, grounded, and were filling in the gaps of safety. Bridges are built with a very detailed and engineered strategic plan. Like the building of bridges, our prayer lives need to strategic as well. And James gives us a way to pray, in essence, a formula, to develop a prayer life and connect with God. Some of you might be asking, why even have a prayer life? Or does God even hear our prayers? Does God really care about whether or not I have a prayer life???

First, in order to answer those questions, I think we have to first make 3 huge assumptions.??

God exists.?

God is capable of hearing our prayers.?
God cares about our prayers.??

In making these 3 assumptions, none can be proved or disproved and it must either be believed or disbelieved. If we decide to accept these 3 assumptions, then we can continue to develop a prayer life.??

Second, why have a prayer life? The simple answer-if we are followers of Jesus, then we follow. Jesus had a prayer life-he prayed throughout every situation. And he prayed to God as if it made a difference. In his prayer life, Jesus stood before God with every word. And did so with passion. He modeled for us what a prayer life should look like. And for me, that is enough of a reason to have a prayer life.??

Third, does God hear our prayers? My thinking is that if God made me in his image and calls me his child, then God must care about whether or not we find was to connect. Meaning, God is longing for me to communicate about things that are going on in my life, the lives of those of love, and for our world. God wants to know what is on my heart in a way that brings intimacy and relationship. So yes, I truly believe God hears our prayers.??

Yet many of us still wonder, how to pray to God. Truthfully, there isn?t really a set formula, but are many great examples in the Bible. The one we are focusing on today is the strategy given to us through James. James was one of the disciples, who watched what Jesus did in his prayer life, and shares instructions for life throughout his epistle.??

James shares: if you are suffering, pray. If you are cheerful, praise. If you are sick, asked to be prayed over. If you need to be forgiven, pray. Pray for one another. Prayer is healing. Prayer is powerful and effective. James says, PRAY. In praying, we are connecting with God by pouring out our hearts, realizing God will answer, always believing, and yielding and responding to what God tells us. PRAY.?

But what does it take to become a prayer? It takes commitment. For some people, it means scheduling prayer into your life. At 8am every day, I will spend time in prayer. Or others, it means praying as you drive. For others, it is praying before bed. And for others, it is something different. But it all begins with commitment and remembering that prayer is an ongoing conversation with God.??

Some might be thinking, how do I pray? Do I pray just with my words? Or can I pray with my actions? I believe prayer is a whole body thing. When we pray with our bodies with spiritual intent, both our bodies and the experience become sacred. Sometimes these bodily actions can accompany spoken prayers, other times they are prayers in or of themselves. We need to make sure we don?t limit prayer to just words where prayer because a mental and vocal expression only. I think we make prayer who holistic when we practice prayer in thought (mind), with will (heart), and actions (body)?when all of these come together, it involves the whole person. Gestures and actions can help us truly deepen our spiritual life.??

And finally, if we remember the context in which Jesus was devoted to prayer and the place where James wrote from, we need to remember the Jewish understanding of prayer. For the Jews, prayer was nothing less than contacting the power of God, it was the channel through which the strength and grace of God were brought to bear on the troubles and problems of life.??

Prayer is the bridge between God and humanity. Between God and me. Between God and you. The bridge needs someone to stand in the gap, to be the conduit for the connection with God. God desires to bridge the gap with all of humanity, we just have to be willing to pray and make that commitment and connection with God.??

As I think back to Jim and the columns that ?held up? the bridge being built in West Virginia, I realized I don?t want to be the column that looks like it is doing something. I don?t want to have the facade that I have a prayer life that is so connected with God. Instead, I want to be part of the bridge with God, to be solid, secure, dedicated in my prayer life. That when people know I am a Christian and a pastor, that they look at me and know that I am a bridge builder with God for the people in our world.??