This morning I spent some time at a prayer space at South Woodham Evangelical Church and found it very helpful. During the time several different thoughts occurred to me and a couple of them stuck.

One is that I personally find it a lot easier to spend time in prayer if I have activities to engage with. Spending time in silent prayer and meditation is good but I find it hard work (not that hard work is wrong!). I lose concentration, my mind drifts and, if I am completely honest, I can get a bit bored.

But if you give me some prayerful activities to engage with I find myself entering into a dialogue with God that is so much richer and more profound that sitting in silence. That bothers me, because I fear that I am missing out because of that, and it also blesses me because I recognise (as I have said many times here) that we all have different spiritual personalities and there really isn’t one-size that fits all when it comes to praying, reading the Bible and encountering God.

This morning I was refreshed as I put an Alka Seltzer tablet (other effervescent tablets are available) into a bowl of water and watched it vanish – reflecting that the stuff that separates me from God (my sin) has been forgiven when I confess it and as far as God is concerned is gone, forgotten, deleted, erased… it is no longer something that separates me from him.

I was blessed when provided with a blank piece of paper and some drawing implements so that I could  be creative. I drew something that represented the empty tomb on the first Easter Sunday and thought through the implications of that: because the tomb is empty

I am…

I can…

I will…

I will be…

I see…

and I filled in some of the blanks in grateful prayer.

I wrote the names of people and situations for which I am currently praying on a cut out of a person and sought God’s grace, joy, peace, presence and love for those people. It helped me to focus on them, their needs, their circumstances and the fact that they are people not just names.

I had an encounter with God.

And there was more besides. Much more. It was a very special time. Thank you to SWEC and the Chelmsford 24/7 Prayer team who helped organise it.

So the thought occurs to me to ask you how you find it easier to encounter God, to pray, to read the Bible? Have you tried other approaches to see if they are helpful or have you just stuck to what you have always known and the way you have always done it? You could be missing out!

Be blessed, be a blessing.