Prayer for the Day

by Revd Canon David White

8th June 2025 - Pentecost

Spirit of God, Lord and Giver of Life,
moving between us and around,
like wind or water or fire;
breathe into us your freshness that we may awake;
cleanse our vision that we may see more clearly;
kindle our senses that we may feel more sharply;
and give us the courage to live as you would have us live,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

This is a prayer of John V Taylor who was a theologian and Bishop of Winchester from 1974 to 1985. He wrote a number of books but ‘The Go-Between God’, (first published in 1972 and still in print) is arguably the best book to have been written on the Holy Spirit. In the book, he makes the Spirit come alive through describing how the Holy Spirit works in the nitty-gritty of personal relationships in daily life. He argues that the Holy Spirit is the invisible third party who stands between each one of us and others whom we encounter, that is, our neighbours as described by Jesus. The Spirit opens our eyes to Christ and also to our brothers and sisters in Christ – especially the poor.

Taylor writes in the book: “To live in prayer…is to live in the Spirit, and to live in the Spirit is to live in Christ…to live in Christ is to live in prayer”. The above prayer expresses the freedom of the Spirit and asks that we may share the Spirit’s influence and qualities so all may be revealed in us in the way we live.