FRIENDS of mine have recently headed off to New Zealand to spend at least a year in that fine country.

Back in the day, of course, that meant that we would hardly hear from them until they returned, except for letters which usually took almost a month to arrive.

These days, thanks to the wonders of email and social media, we can be in constant contact with someone.

This all reminded me that Christians believe that whilst we can’t actually see God, we can be in constant contact with God through the amazing power of prayer.

Often we can think that prayer is just something we do in church using a preset form of prayers or that we do in emergencies, but prayer is actually a conversation with God that we can have all the time, where God listens, talks to us and answers prayers.

Just like chatting to a friend on the Internet, prayer is a vital way that God can be a constant presence in our daily lives.