Does God answer prayer? Well, now -A story. He had just bought a beautiful new mountain bike. A few days later he went shopping, left it parked in an alley down the side of the shop, and then forgot all about it. He woke up with a start in the middle of the night, suddenly remembering that he had left his bike. Sweating cobs, he prayed that it would still be there next morning. He went very early, and there it was. Cycling home, he popped into the local church to say a thank you to God. When he came out, the bike had gone.

Someone once said that if you always keep getting what you pray for, then you are praying to the wrong God.

I once met a woman who had lost a bobbin of cotton for her sewing machine. She looked absolutely everywhere for it, and had come to the end of her tether. She thought she would ask God to show her where it was. She sat down and said a prayer and then went straight to it! That for her was prayer answered, and that little incident changed her life.

On the other hand, I along with countless thousands of other people in this country have been praying since 1969 for the killing in Northern Ireland to stop - and it's as bad as ever. People will tell you of marvellous cures that have come about through prayer. Why some and not others? I don't know, nor does anybody. What I am clear about is that prayer sometimes works like a laser beam. As a laser beam draws together all the oscillations of light into perfect balance or coherence so that they reinforce each other and cut through, so prayer can bring into a perfect harmony and intensity all the energies of love in certain circumstances and can help to change the ways in which a person's body is functioning or malfunctioning. This can also apply to situations and relationships among groups of people. What I am quite certain about is that God is not like one of these divers' watches - you press one button and something happens just as you expected, then you press another and again the anticipated result - right on the button. However, one day when I came in from church, my perceptive daughter said to me, "Dad, why doesn't

all this praying make any difference to the way you are at home?' And that is nearer the truth of the matter.

Real prayer helps us to face the truth. It starts to reveal what is just and what is unjust, deceit and honesty. It reveals more and more the truth to us about ourselves and the situation we or others are in. It helps us to live with the truth and remain loving and forgiving. It will often show us what we do not want to see, especially about ourselves, and help us to be more realistic. When a miracle happens - and they do- we may not understand because we only see part of the truth about Life and God.