The prayer you stopped praying

We all want to belong. As we read in Luke 1: 5-17, Zechariah and Elizabeth had spent their whole lives feeling like they didn’t fit in with the other families. Unable to have children, they faced their disappointment with a passion and focus on God. Zechariah’s name means ‘God remembers’ and here we discover how God answers his and Elizabeth’s prayer for a child. One possible translation of verse 13 includes the sentiment that it is a prayer he’s stopped even praying any more. Nevertheless, God crashes in to Zechariah’s world with a surprisingly timed answer. The child Elizabeth would bear wasn’t one for fitting in with the crowd – and yet he was the one God used to prepare the way for Jesus to belong in people’s lives.

Mary’s faith and willingness to give God her ‘yes’ is remarkable. (You can read her story in Luke 1: 24-45.) She was taking a tremendous risk in embarking on this adventure, as a woman betrothed to be married to Joseph. Not only would she have been afraid of losing this loving and honourable man, but also of repercussions from the community and perhaps hers or Joseph’s families. Her life could have been in danger. Yet God provides the prophetic encouragement from Elizabeth she needs.

This Advent, why not pick up the burden of prayer for one another by sharing with a trusted friend the prayer you no longer pray? Zechariah went into the temple but there was a crowd of people praying outside. Let’s be the crowd who create a cloud of prayer that leads to one another having our moments of encounter with God, and our unspoken or abandoned prayers answered.