Neil's blog

Ever tried to pray while driving the car? And I don’t just mean, during road rage, when you want God to fire bolts at the bloke who’s sent your blood pressure sky high. Ever prayed while out walking the dog or wandering through the park, or down the street? Unless blind, you’ll be a danger to yourself & others prayer walking with eyes closed. You’ll also miss much material to talk to God about.

Do we do our children a disservice by teaching them to pray with their eyes closed? “Hands clasped, eyes closed, let’s pray” was the way I was taught in Sunday School, & it can be helpful for shutting out distractions to focus on God, but if that’s the only way we pray we miss out on a wonderful eye opening world of communion with God!

E Peterson in ‘The Contemplative Pastor’ (pp.84-85) describes the importance of both ‘eyes shut’ & ‘eyes open’ prayer. With these beautiful spring days, there’s so much to encourage us to pray with our eyes open. I look out my window & sense sap rising in the tree branches & plants, & with it my hopes grow in God’s ability to bring new life into & through us, “Lord, may your new life blossom & bloom all around, through sacrificial acts of kindness & opportunities we grasp to spread Your Great News that, like Spring, ‘Jesus, You are not only near, You’re here!’

There’s the famous story of the desperate group at a bus stop praying for a bus to come, only for it to go flying by them! So intent to pray with eyes shut, they missed the answer to their passionate prayers. I want to join the psalm writers & prophets who saw the “hills skip like lambs” & heard “trees clap their hands”, alert to God everywhere, in everything, praying, praising with my eyes wide open. “Dear God, teach me to pray with eyes of faith, Wide, Wide Open!”