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A few days ago, there was a little girl in the food court at the mall, maybe two years old, and she was not having a good time.

Daring to Dream Again: Empower Everything You Do With Prayer - I Samuel 1: 1-20-

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An older child took away a toy she was playing with. She got tangled up in adult feet as she tried to walk, and fell down. She reached for a cup of drink on the table, and couldn't quite get it. It simply wasn't her moment. So she went over to Mom, who was standing and talking to somebody, and she stood at Mom's feet with her arms stretched up, and Mom reached down and picked her up, and held her, and rocked her gently as she talked, and the little girl rested her head and smiled and was just fine.

It so happened that I have been looking ahead to this week in the 50-Day Adventure, and our theme this week is prayer. And that little girl gave me an image for prayer that touched my heart. Sometimes we have moments like she was having - things just don't go right. It might not be a bigger kid taking our stuff; it might be a big, ongoing problem sapping our strength. It might not be tripping and falling in a tangle of adult feet; it might be a deep sorrow or a sudden loss that trips you up. It might not be a piece of food on the table you can't reach - it might be hope or love or inner peace you can't find.

At such a moment, we have a place to go. We can lift our outstretched arms to heaven, and God will pick us up and give us rest - that's the invitation of prayer. Nothing much makes sense in our church without it. It is the lifeblood of everything we do. And yet, we are constantly challenged to keep it in its rightful place. There is a tyranny of busy-ness that wants to stifle our prayer life. As we all know, there is a full calendar of things going on here - we are a busy church of busy people. And sometimes we are tempted to just want to get on with the business. But our church policy is to begin with prayer. We can't afford not to. As Martin Luther used to say, "I am so busy that I can't afford to begin the day without at least three hours of prayer."

Nothing is more important in this worship service than the prayer-time we spend together. And nothing is more important during the week than the prayers that are shared at meetings, over the phone, through the prayer chain, and in many other places.

But sometimes we imagine that prayer is not easy. That image of a child reaching up her arms to her heavenly parent seems like it should be the most natural thing in the world. But it seems more complicated. We think we have to know some special technique, or some fancy words.

I'd like to share a simple formula that has been helpful to me. It's not something I thought up, and some of you are familiar with it, I'm sure. It's called ACTS, and those four letters help me to keep the main ingredients in prayer. Here's what they mean:

First of all, A stands for adoration. I've read of a church in Scandinavia that has a beautiful, life-size statue of Jesus in the doorway. His arms are outstretched, and his crown is radiant. His face is absolutely beautiful, but his head is bowed down, so that the person who wants to look into the face of the Lord has to get down on his or her knees and gaze upward. This is the proper spirit for the beginning of prayer. Prayer is a natural conversation, but it is not a conversation among equals. It is a gift we are granted by a God who is infinitely worthy of our worship and praise. Our proper place is on our knees - not literally always, but always figuratively.

We cause immeasurable suffering and pain to ourselves and others when we forget our rightful place before God, and fall prey to our own human ego. This Lenten season is the time of year when Christians focus on just that - that we can't enter into the kingdom of heaven until we put our pride aside, and worship God on our knees. The great ruler Philip of Macedon kept a man in his court whose only job was to say to him, at least once a day: "Remember, Philip, that thou art mortal." We need to remind ourselves of that every day. Bowing in adoration before God is how we do that. This is why, when Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, he taught them to start with words of high adoration - Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Over and over again, the psalms start out with words of praise. O Lord, our lord, how majestic is thy name over all the earth. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. Adoring God in prayer is not only the polite and proper way to address the Almighty; it shapes a respectful attitude for all things within us. It also gives us the blessed relief that we are in the presence of the One who has the power to lift us up and bring us salvation. This is why our prayer begins in adoration.

C is for confession. Again, this is an act of humility before God. We confess that without God we are helpless. There was a Family Circus cartoon where little Jeffie hands a greeting card to his mother and says, "Mommy, would you write 'Happy Mother's Day' on here, but don't look at it.'" In prayer before God we have to confess that we can't even sign our own card. The apostle Paul wrote, "We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the (Holy) Spirit himself intercedes for us..." In other words, if we confess our helplessness to even pray before God, then God's Spirit will show us the way.

But, of course, confession can mean something else, too. We can have glaring sins to confess before God. We have thoughts and deeds that bring us shame to recall, and no matter how hard we try, we can't shake them, or break their power over us. But God can. God is ready to forgive us even before we are ready to forgive ourselves. I can only imagine God's heartache over the sins and griefs we carry around with us - when he is so ready to forgive, if we simply confess in sincere faith. Again, ‘tis the season. Lent is a time of self-reflection and confession - and the end of the journey is the cross of forgiveness. Praise God for the love of His Son. What a friend we have in Jesus/All our sins and griefs to bear/What a privilege to carry/Everything to God in prayer/ O what peace we often forfeit/ O what needless pain we bear/ All because we do not carry/ Everything to God in prayer. C means confession.

I'll introduce the third element of prayer with a little story - a man fell overboard, and

was treading water. As he looked around, he saw a big shark coming toward him. He prayed, "Dear Lord, save me from that shark." But then his heart sank when he heard the shark say, "Lord, thank you for this meal of which I am about to partake." The third element of prayer is Thanksgiving. After we express our adoration for God, and after we confess our need for God, and our sins, we have so much to be thankful for. That such a God, worthy of our praise, would invite us to converse with Him, that he would hear our confession, know our need for forgiveness and salvation, and send his Son to meet that need on the cross - we can never lift enough thanks for all those things.

Our front sign says today, "Can't Sleep? Try counting your blessings." And so much of the unhappiness and restlessness we experience is due to ingratitude. Instead of counting our blessings, we fall into the trap of being more aware of what we lack - envying others who seem to have more, and feeling entitled to more - when in fact, life itself is a gift. We didn't pay God to be born; we didn't work for the honor of being created. We were given everything we have as a gift. Count your blessings.

This is why the tradition of grace before meals is so meaningful - even for sharks. It is a pause for thanksgiving that reminds us that this food, and all the other blessings we have, are worthy of our thanksgiving. I don't know where this will go over time, or even if it's statistically accurate. But it seems to me more common to see people pausing to say grace in restaurants, and other public places. Ten years ago, you almost never saw it; but now you see it here and there. That doesn't mean it's for everybody - many people feel awkward doing that. And it can certainly be done privately and without show. But I think it is a good sign that when it happens, it is respected. And, of course, grace is always a wonderful way for families to come into the presence of God together. It binds couples together; it teaches children about thanksgiving; it brings God into the soul.

The fourth element is the one most represented in our Old Testament story today- it is Supplication. I looked up supplication in the dictionary, and found a perfect phrase for this part of our prayer: to supplicate is to make a humble, earnest petition. And this is what we do every Sunday morning when we share our Joys and Concerns in prayer - make a humble, earnest petition before God. That certainly describes Hannah's prayer for a son. She showed the humility and earnestness of her heart by her pledge that if her prayer was answered, she would dedicate the child always to the Lord. And this she did, and God raised up from her the great prophet Samuel.

Of course, we have to be careful about supplications. We don't present God with a shopping list, as if we’re placing an order. A little boy was praying in his room, saying, "I WANT A BICYCLE, AND A PLAYST A TION, AND A TRAIN SET..." And his mother said, "You know, Joey, God isn't hard of hearing." And Joey pointed toward the next room, and said, "No, but Grandma is." Giving supplication before God isn't about sending up a list of wants. It's about expressing love and grace, and being in tune with what God would want. I am not crazy about the way our 50-Day Adventure writers talk about Hannah's prayer as an example of how God is more likely to answer our prayer if we convince Him it is to His advantage to do so. I hope that's their way of saying that we should try to pray in alignment with what God would want. The most mature spiritual people I have met have this nailed. They pray boldly, they ask for many things - but only in the spirit of the deep, deep fellowship they have with God. And that shapes what they ask for. And it makes prayer a wonderful conversation between close friends.

That's the A -C- T -S of prayer. It is a pattern that helps me a great deal. But over time I've come to add the letter D at the end - for Devotion. I pray that the result of my prayers will be a true devotion to God. My model prayer is the prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before he died. He made a supplication -- an earnest, humble petition - before God. "Take this cup away from me," referring to the cup of death. But then he prayed to God in utter devotion, "Nevertheless, not my will; but thine be done." I hope that can be the conclusion to every prayer I make - a total trust in the goodness and grace of God, and a total devotion of my life to Him.

I am so grateful to be a part of this praying, caring family of faith. "We're a fellowship of believers/ We have come to God in prayer." Here in our church, out there in the world, in our individual lives -- we face many challenges. And sometimes we don't know exactly what to do. But we do know to pray. We bring our joys and concerns, and our loved ones, and our hurts and our sorrows to God. We are promised that God is all ready to listen, and to lift us up in grace, and to hold us close, and to empower us. And that means things will be alright. We are approaching halfway in the Lenten season - day 22 of our 50-Day Adventure. Let us make the next weeks a season of deep prayer. We know it won't be easy; life will be busy. There will be challenges. But let God's family hold each other in prayer; let us trust that God will answer; and let that be our sure source of wisdom and our strength.