Under the Influence (Week 3)
This week, we will focus on 1 Peter chapter 4, exploring what fasting and sobriety have to do with living a life of prayer.
What are your earliest memories of prayer?
What do you think of when you think of prayer? What is the purpose of prayer?
What are some common motivations behind why we pray? Do you pray primarily in the form of a petition (making requests), or as a matter of routine (before eating, or before bed)? Or is prayer something else to you?
How would you describe your prayer life? Do you wish you had more time for prayer?
What does it mean to live a “life of prayer”? What shifts do you think you need to make to live such a life?
Discuss the list below from Pete’s sermon. How might sobriety, simplicity, or fasting from idols help strengthen or deepen your prayer life?
The Life of Prayer
Idolatry Suppresses Prayer while Sobriety Invites
Drunkenness Distracts Prayer while Sobriety Focuses
Idolatry Corrupts Prayer while Sobriety Informs
Going Further (Explore on your own, or with your group)
Prayer can take many different forms. It can extemporaneous (without preparation), intercessory (praying on behalf of another), silent (centering prayer), or written down by another.
If your prayer life feels stuck, try praying in a way that is unfamiliar to you this week—you may experience a reinvigoration in your prayer life by trying something new!
Read about and try centering prayer, or choose one of the prayers written below. There are also very good online prayer apps (Pray As You Go, Lectio 365, or Pause) you can listen to from a smart phone or computer.
The Welcoming Prayer (Thomas Keating)
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I welcome everything that comes to me today, because I know it's for my healing. I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons, situations, and conditions.
I let go of my desire for power and control.
I let go of my desire for affection, esteem, approval, and pleasure.
I let go of my desire for survival and security.
I let go of my desire to change any situation, condition, person or myself.
I open to the love and presence of God and God's action within.
Amen.
Peace Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
The Jesus Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
A Prayer of St. Patrick
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me, Christ in the ear that hears me.
Prayer of Abandonment (Charles de Foucauld)
Father, I abandon myself into your hands, do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me and in all your creatures.
I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into your hands, I commend my soul;
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart;
For I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself:
To surrender myself into your hands without reserve and with boundless confidence. For you are my Father.
The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13)
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come, your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we also have forgiven those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
(*Video available after Sunday services)
