To me, prayer shouldn’t be separate from daily life, but should arise spontaneously from it, inspired by the ordinary sights, sounds and experiences that surround us. That was the raison d’être behind my series of books, Touched By His Hand, Touching Down, Touching the Seasons and Heaven Touching Earth, supplemented by Calling Mars and Calling Venus, both written at the suggestion of Kevin Mayhew and aimed specifically at men and women respectively. In the following, for example, taken from Calling Mars, prayer is inspired by a tug-of-war contest, which leads on to a realisation that our relationship with God is often very similar.
The tug of war
It looked easy at the beginning
as the two teams took the strain,
each gritting their teeth and digging in,
but once the battle began in earnest, it all changed:
faces purple with effort,
sweat dripping from fevered brows,
tired legs buckling
and muscles stretched to the limit
as a few feet were won,
only to be lost again.
For all my talk, Lord, of closeness,
the relationship between us
is more like a tug of war than shared embrace,
a broken marriage than match made in heaven,
for, despite my best intentions,
I constantly pull away from you,
resisting your will
and attempting to impose mine in its place.
Teach me that, however hard I strive against you,
you will never let go,
and so may I learn to work with you
rather than against.
Amen.