Prayer and Service

Service and prayer can never be separated; they are related to each other as the Yin and Yang of the Japanese Circle.
– Henri Nouwen in The Living Reminder

When we prayer, we serve. When we serve, we pray. Our actions are simply our prayers given flesh. I often marvel at the insistence that we open and close our meetings in the church with a perfunctory prayer. While these prayers serve as useful “bookends” to the meetings, they seldom raise to the level of prayer as prayer. I remember one of my seminary professors who was confronted by a student who objected to the fact that this professor never began his classes with a prayer. The professor’s response was “What do you think we are doing all hour?”

Prayer is not simply the utterance of formal words. It is the expression of our deepest yearnings. Sometimes we articulate these yearnings with words in solemn petitions. Often it is our actions and deeds that give form and shape to our deep desires. All is prayer.