We were off-line for a short while this morning! Most disconcerting - suddenly I realised all the things I do that depend on being in connection with the wider world.
On Sunday, among other things, I was preaching at the United Welsh Chapel, at their united service with the Korean congregation who meet in their building. This entailed the sermon being translated sentence by sentence. To facilitate this, I had sent the script to the assistant pastor, who had trnaslated the whole thing and had it in front of him on the screen of a lap-top. Which ran out of battery power half way through. And so he had to find the cable and get things plugged in and get restarted. While he was doing that, I made some inane comment about there being a sermon illustration in the middle of it all.
Both things together do suggest an illustration. One of those really corny ones, abou needing to be connected into power to function, and something in that about prayer and faith and so on.
And that is true. But it has also got me thinking a bit further about it all. For the connection to the web is going to be effective, it is only because others have already put material out there for me to access. And - and I feel on more secure ground here - to plug into the electricity supply is to be in touch with a whole community. After all, electricity always "existed", but it was only as people learned how to harness and control it, that we can have the access and the use that we have. And nowadays it is only as people support and organise the supply - to say nothing of creating appliances that exploit the electricity, and so on - that the electricity is of any "use" to us; the power is available.
And I guess that's more helpful in thinking about prayer, faith and the life of a follower of Jesus. We do need to "power" of the Spirit's presence in our living. But this is no individualistic perception. Just as the electric power that allows our lives to function is a product of community, so we do not pray alone. We pray in the footsteps of those who have gone before, and leave us hints and teaching about how to approach God, we pray together with those who live in the Spirit, and we pray in the faith that we are part of the whole people of God for all eternity.
And the call remains; prayer, whatever form it takes, and however badly we do it - it matters!