Thy Kingdom Come is a global ecumenical prayer movement, between 29 May and 8 June 2025, during which members of our senior team are sharing reflections on prayer. Watch the video or read the transcript of today’s reflection from Revd Jemima Lewis, Diocesan Head of Communications and Engagement, below.
Hi friends, I like coming to pray near water whenever I can, and I am really lucky to live very near this stream. Praying near water reminds me of the important bigger picture about prayer, which is that my prayer is just a little stream that meets with lots of other streams and joins rivers before flowing into the great ocean that is God and his good purposes.
Sometimes I can put a bit too much pressure on my prayers, like they are the main tributary, the main carrier. I find myself prattling on and on, reciting names and needs a bit like a long shopping list, and then I find that this kind of praying can become a bit onerous. I forget that Jesus said that our Father ‘knows what we need before we ask him.’
But I’ve been remembering recently a book by the former Archbishop Michael Ramsey in which he writes about what true intercessory prayer is – how the verb ‘to intercede’ means not to utter words at all but to encounter, to be with someone on behalf of another.
He writes that intercession is actually about first coming very close ourselves to the heart of God, in worship, in adoration, and then bringing those whom we love and long to be healed, there with us. And he has a beautiful analogy for this from the book of Exodus – this is what he says: “It is like Aaron, the priest of old who went into the holy of holies wearing a breastplate with jewels representing the tribes of Israel whose priest he was: he went near to God with the people on his heart”.
And this idea totally changed my prayer life as I began to feel set free to just be in the presence of God, with the people I am praying for in my heart. I don’t need to make long lists of requests after all, but I can trust in a deeper reality, that the stream of names and faces and struggles of the people in my head and heart are naturally flowing into the bigger river of God’s love.
Who are you praying for? Are there people that have been in your prayers for years and years? Have you run out of words to pray for them? Do your prayers feel a bit like a list? Well, maybe you can be encouraged to just sit in God’s presence today, to not stress about saying everything and everyone you need to, but simply spend time in adoration which naturally becomes intercession, as you bring the people in your heart into God’s presence with you.
