Meeting With God.

Many Of Us Find Prayer Difficult

We say, and believe that prayer is vital, central, non-negotiable. But in practice? It can feel slow… awkward… even quietly tedious—though we would rarely admit it out loud.

So we keep it manageable. A short list of thanks. A few requests. Job done.

But why does it feel like that? Why does something so important so often feel so thin?

Perhaps the answer is uncomfortable: depth of relationship.

It is easy to spend time with someone we know well. Conversation flows. We share concerns, interests, little details. Time disappears. But with God? Why is it different? And more importantly—does it have to be?

How do we move from formality to familiarity? From words spoken into the air… to something more like shared life?

Think for a moment about loss.

Have you ever lost something valuable? Irretrievably lost? My wife once lost the diamond from her ring. Gone. Just like that. Others know the ache of losing a beloved pet. Or the quieter, more complicated grief of relationships drifting—children choosing their own path, family bonds thinning.

Loss has weight. It lingers.

Jesus understood that feeling. He told stories about it—the lost coin, the wandering sheep, the son who disappeared into a far country.

And in every case, something remarkable happens. The lost is found. Restored. Brought home. There is forgiveness. There is relief. There is joy.

That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Our prayers are often about those things—recovery, forgiveness, reconciliation. We bring what is broken. We ask to be restored. And rightly so.

But Jesus’ stories do not end there.

Something Else Always Follows

There is a gathering. Friends are called. Food is set out. The story is told again and again—“It was lost, and now it is found!” There is laughter. Celebration. Shared presence.

So here is the question: why do we so often stop early?

Why do we conclude our prayers at the moment of recovery, and quietly step away—missing the celebration? Missing the conversation?

How often do you remain?

How often do you sit in the quiet long enough for something more to unfold—being with God? Without speaking. Listening. Paying attention. Not just asking, then leaving, but leaving time for a relationship?

Because if those stories tell us anything, it is this: your Father delights in restoration—but he also delights in being with you.

For our Father, it is not just about what you say, but about your presence. The delight of being with you.

So what might happen if you stayed a little longer?

Forget about 'hearing correctly'. What if you quietened your mind simply to be there… with the Father, with the Son?

Not rushing away once the need is met—but lingering, as if the conversation has only just begun.

Do you remember why Jesus was willing to be beaten bloody, slapped, mocked, dragged naked through the city streets, then hung on a cross, under a merciless midday sun?

Do you recall why he was willing to look at the fear on John's face, to see the terror of his mother as he carried the weight of greed, hatred and cruelty of every generation that was, and would be including ours?

What was the reason why he voluntarily experienced the suffocating weight of carelessness, the avoidance and selfishness of every individual who refuses to stand up against wrongdoing, including me and you?

Let me remind you.

He did that for the joy that was set before him.

The joy of spending time with you, to show you his character and share his love. The joy of developing a relationship with you.

And you getting to know him.

But Maybe You Are Thinking...

Maybe you are thinking that kind of thing never really happens for me. Not in my prayer times. Prayer doesn't work like that for me.

I know this is not easy for you, but you are not alone. To come to that place where the inner noise begins to quieten—where the prodding of anxiety, and planning, and distraction cannot reach you. To remain there, attentive, when drowsiness steals in. To wait in humility, without words, simply trusting that your Father is present and willing to be known. Yes, it can be difficult, awkward, then frustrating. And finally even boring.

Though we never dare admit that, because of a prayer that Jesus prayed.

In the garden.

Let us think about that for a moment.

When Jesus prays, within sight of the cross, on the brink of this huge, totally world changing event, his words have a lasar focus on the heart. He speaks to the Father with the intensity of a locked gaze and the closeness of a shared breath.

And it is there, in that charged, intimate moment, that we overhear these words…

You see we spend so much time worrying about how will we get young people, or children, or more people into our church buildings. We make the entrance-way attractive. We try to get our music uplifting. We try to get preachers who are not too old!

Listen carefully to the urgency in Jesus’ prayer:

This is not a passing thought. It is the central cry of his heart. And we are there, standing in his prayer.

Right in the centre.

Now Lift Your Eyes

Look to the horizon, and see the distance this prayer covers in a few words:

This is the great landscape that this prayer paints. While we often settle for less - maybe just to aspire simply to get along with other Christians, and live lives that enable us to avoid feeling guilty, Jesus' vision for us is of something utterly beautiful and transformative.

It is that the community of his followers have a love and unity so exceptional that there can only be a miraculous explanation - that Jesus is who he claimed to be - the Messiah, the Son of God.

And you simply cannot create that community through negotiated agreements, reorganisations or mergers. Listen to what he says:

The unity Jesus prays for flows out of something deeper: the sharing of his glory.

And what is this glory that binds people together so completely?

So there it is. Nothing particularly spectacular, but simply God's love, evident and visible. A love so selfless, so committed, so determined, that it declares the good news of Jesus Christ, even without us opening our mouths.

So the progression of Jesus’ prayer becomes clear. We come to the Father. We remain with him. We encounter the Son. And in that place, we receive the love that has always existed between Father and Son.

That love does not stay contained. It begins to shape us.

It becomes a shared life—a love for one another that is recognisably different: more patient, more attentive, more costly, more alive than that commonly found in others around us.

And that difference does something. It becomes visible. It raises questions. It draws people in.

Our task, then, is not to manufacture unity, but to make space for it to be expressed—to shape our common life so that this shared love can be seen, tasted, and entered into by others.

You may feel that this kind of quiet waiting with God is beyond you. That it does not seem to “work.”

But understand this: once you have come, once you are there—waiting, listening, settled into that patient, expectant posture—the burden shifts. What happens next is not yours to engineer.

Hear this from:

The same God who once spoke light into existence is now at work within you. And he knows how to make himself known.

Your part is wonderfully simple, but also to be stubbornly determined: to be there. To return. To remain.

You may hear nothing. You may simply become aware, over time, of a growing stillness, a quiet familiarity—like learning to sit in a room where you are deeply known and deeply loved. And that is not nothing. That is the slowly spreading growth of everything that matters.

Because this is where Jesus’ prayer meets us. If the unity he asks for is born from shared life with the Father, then it cannot be bypassed. It cannot be organised into existence. It must be received.

So to take him seriously here is just this - refuse to live at a distance from the source, give quality time and close attention. Spend time being still, waiting, in that place where the light can fall.

Trust that the God who said “Let there be light” is still speaking—still shining—still making the face of Jesus Christ known, in hearts that are willing to stay.

But what happens when you do stay… and the light does not seem to come?

What do you do when the silence stretches out longer than expected? When the relationship you long for does not unfold in ways that feel familiar—when there is no voice, no vision, no clear sense of response?

Is something wrong? Are you doing it badly? Or is it possible that we have misunderstood what this relationship is meant to feel like?

Because before we can learn to remain, we may first need to come to terms with something many of us quietly carry:

The ache of God’s silence.

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