When we bring our worries to God in prayer

When we bring our worries to God in prayer-we often think of that prayer as giving our burdens up – handing them over to God and that is a very helpful image.

But sometimes, the concern is still very much a real part of our day.

I read an interesting analogy with prayer recently which I can’t get out of my mind.

The gist of the analogy is to do with carrying weight around – all sorts of weights of varying shapes and sizes.

Until we pray it is like we are carrying these weights in the most disorganised way possible. Carrying some in weak carrier bags – balancing others in our hands which are already overfull – and stumbling on with too much weight carried in ways which cannot be good for us.

When we pray, very often the weights are still there, God hasn’t yet completely removed the problem. But the act of praying has helped us to sort and arrange our weights into a manageable rucksack properly packed and balanced.

And then we can carry on, in a way which would not have been possible without the prayer.

We regularly need to stop, take stock and sort out our bags and sometimes put some new things in which we have unintentionally found ourselves balancing awkwardly in our hands again.

And sometimes when we have a sort out - some of things which were in the bag before have somehow shrunk or gone entirely.