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Friends,

Something about Eugene Peterson's interpretation of scripture struck me this week. What struck me was the intimate and organic nature of relationship with Jesus. Something which I wonder if we think much about in our everyday lives.

I wasn't asked until I was 16 about how I prayed, and when I was asked I was terrified to answer. I was terrified to answer because truthfully I didn't know how to pray. I could say the prayers in the book, but they often felt hollow and empty. Hollow and empty because I was not inhabiting them with my life, I was treating my relationship with God like a letter to Santa.

Which of course has its place, prayers of petition are important. And yet with every petition comes a response in relationship. A response that often prayer can forget about because of how we may talk at God, as if God has no idea what is already going on in our lives, rather than talking with God. I wonder what prayer looks like when we are invited to sit and listen, rather than speak.

Sitting and listening with God in prayer can be about hearing the beautiful song of a bird, the gentle breeze of the wind, the buzzing of a bee, the laughter of a child, and being reminded of just how close God really is to us. God is as close to us as our very breath, a breath which brings us life. Life which is from God.

Being intimate and organic in a relationship takes time, commitment, and communication. All of which baptism gives us the gifts to thrive in a deeper organic and intimate relationship with God everyday. An organic intimate relationship which is about you today, rather than the idea of you tomorrow. An organic relationship that smells of the kingdom of God, which is Love. A kingdom of love whose harvest is abundant. 

Come Sunday to find out how this story ends.

Bring a friend, bring two

Alex+