I sometimes thing my main function here is to post on topics and sit back and wait for the really excellent and insightful comments to come in to really enlighten the reader; it is one of the great joys of the Watchtower.  So often, one (or more) of you zones in on precisely the point I have not quite managed to bring out. It happened again yesterday, when a post prompted by some comments of Neo, brought forth this from Mr. V:

You can’t simply pray one prayer and do nothing else and be assured of salvation, as so many churches nowadays seem to teach

He was referring to the practice one sees in some places of saying that one can simply say the prayer inviting Jesus into your life and then, bingo, everything is fine and you’re saved.

They are basically training people to be the rocky soil in which the seed lands but is unable to take root, so it doesn’t grow.

There is everything in that which most of us would agree with.

Taking Jesus into your life, means giving your life to Him. It is the beginning of a relationship which will deepen, which will go through ups and downs, and which will sometimes bring you more grief than joy.

I can only speak for me, but there are times when I feel I have alienated Jesus by my selfishness, by my lack of attention, and by my sloppy ways. I mean, how much self-discipline does it take to pray every morning? So how bad to I feel when, as happened this morning, late rising (new alarm clock needed) meant I had to shower, get dressed and be taken to work all within a few minutes of getting up? Some Christian, I thought.

I expressed that to my co-author, who is driving me to work. He switched off the radio and told me to close my eyes and think through my prayers silently. I did as I was told (being a good girl like that) – and I was amazed at the result.

Usually I pray in my prayer corner in my room, where I have some icons, a statue of the Virgin Mary, a couple of candles and a crucifix. I like to be quiet, to meditate on what I am going to pray about, and to pray my Rosary first. In a way, I suppose I have made quite a performance of it, and being fond of my own little rituals, I felt quite bereft, as well as very useless in my devotions. Even when the Captain and I were on holiday, I managed my prayer time.

But, of course, as ever, Chalcedon was right. It didn’t matter that I was in a car being driven to work. God was still there, still holding out His arms for me. He didn’t care that I was praying silently, or that my fingers were scuttling across my Rosary in silence whilst I tried to concentrate. I lost all sense of being in the car – and when I finished C was smiling. I looked puzzled: ‘We’ve been her ten minutes now, but I didn’t want to break your prayers.’  Somehow, I’d actually spent half an hour in silent prayer. It was a lesson, indeed, several lessons, to me.