Here is our thought of the week page. Take a moment to ready and reflect.

‘Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tyre?’ (Corrie Ten Boom). “I lift up my eyes to the mountains – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” (Psalm 121:1-2).

Lifting our eyes to the mountains is not something we can physically do in Bedford, but Jesus regularly used the mountain as his prayer base, going up the mountain to pray on multiple occasions including before he chose the 12 apostles, before the Transfiguration and after feeding the five thousand. Solitude and silence were important to Jesus because he wanted to spend time alone with his Father in prayer. He used this time as preparation, to deal with grief and other emotions, and to cope with the constant demands of his ministry. Occasionally Jesus went up the mountain and spent the whole night in prayer; at other times Jesus got up while it was still dark and went to a solitary place. Why a mountain? Sometimes we forget that after Jesus began his ministry he had no fixed home or place to stay because he and his disciples travelled on foot around the country, often not knowing where they would spend the night. As Jesus said to the teacher of the law: “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20). The mountain provided Jesus with exactly what he needed - solitude, peace and quiet - so he could commune with his heavenly Father. That’s what prayer was all about for Jesus – spending time with God, communicating with his Father, listening and talking with no interruptions from others. I wonder if being in a place of grandeur and beauty also made a difference. Imagine seeing the sun rise from the mountain top and listening to the dawn chorus – nature reflecting and rejoicing in the glory of its Creator.

I wonder where you go to pray and be alone with God? Maybe we can learn something from Jesus’s decision to regularly go up a mountain to pray. I read somewhere that the mountain is symbolic of praying with uplifted eyes, with our minds fixed on God. So we need somewhere where we can be free from distractions and interruptions, somewhere we can go regularly, somewhere quiet where we can listen to God and talk to him with freedom and honesty. Maybe, too, it would be helpful to be somewhere where we can see or hear something that reminds us of the beauty and wonder of creation and its Creator, that helps us to lift up our eyes, so that we pray with our eyes on God, not on our difficulties. Following the example of Jesus, let’s be a people for whom prayer guides and frames each day, remembering that our heavenly Father loves to spend time daily with his precious children.

“I lift up my eyes to the mountains – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” Sue Williams