Our modern lives seem increasingly busy and often leave little time for reflection. We can be pretty efficient with our time when it comes to binge watching our favourite Netflix series, scheduling in our gym classes or volunteering for overtime to impress the boss, but it seems that in the midst of all of this we're not devoting enough time to prayer.
The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK), the UK's largest independent Christian publisher, is seeking to provide a remedy of sorts to this with it's new campaign #prayersonthemove. SPCK's advertisement campaign consists of prayer posters on public transport around the UK, including London's extremely busy underground tube network, and a website which features daily prayers and podcasts. On Twitter the campaign is proving quite popular, with lots of users tweeting the hashtag and photos of the adverts. The SPCK campaign seems to be tapping into the reality that lots of people are feeling overwhelmed with the stress of life but are unsure where to turn.
Outside of church and prayer groups, prayer can be an extremely private exercise. Workplaces are fitted with prayer rooms to give those wishing to pray a private and quiet space. And there is Biblical teaching to support this approach, "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret will reward you," (Matthew 6:6). However, this doesn't mean that we can only pray in private spaces. In fact, the ability to do it wherever we are is one of things that makes it so special. Taking more than just a few moments out of our hectic lifestyles can enable us to grow spiritually and develop a deeper faith.
Prayer is a really important aspect of our relationship with God and we should devote time to praying often. The idea of #prayersonthemove is to highlight that we're never too busy and that no space is off limits when it comes to prayer. Essentially, it doesn't matter where we do it but if our attitude to prayer is more akin to a diet which regularly consists of "food on the go" and not much else, then we might need to give to consider how healthy we are spirituality. So, maybe the real question isn't is there room for prayer in public, but rather, are we making enough room for Christ our lives?
