One night a house caught fire and a young boy was forced to flee to the roof. The father stood on the ground below with outstretched arms, calling to his son, “Jump! I’ll catch you.” He knew the boy had to jump to save his life. All the boy could see, however, was flame, smoke, and blackness. As can be imagined, he was afraid to leave the roof. His father kept yelling: “Jump! I will catch you.” But the boy protested, “Daddy, I can't see you.” The father replied, “But I can see you. That’s what matters. Listen for my voice. I’ll catch you. I promise.”

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Him needs to buy carrots. Gertrude wrote a letter to she.That pencil is me.

Can you work out what’s wrong with those sentences? Well done. They don’t contain the right pronouns. I’m sure you don’t usually think much about pronouns, but there are a whole bunch of them we use all the time. In fact, there are nine common types of pronouns:

personal pronouns – replace the names of people or things

demonstrative pronouns – point out specific things

interrogative pronouns – used to ask questions

relative pronouns – introduce a dependent clause

indefinite pronouns – refer to nonspecific things

possessive pronouns – show ownership

reflexive pronouns – used when the subject and the object are the same

intensive pronouns – emphasize a noun

reciprocal pronouns – indicate a mutual relationship or action

So, why this lesson on pronouns? Well, simply because knowing the right pronoun can sometimes be a matter of life and death.

There’s no doubt about it, Jesus prayed a lot. And, he encouraged his disciples to pray a lot. I wonder what they were thinking when they asked Jesus to teach them to pray as John taught his disciples? What were they expecting? Were they expecting a formula? A checklist? A manual? A pattern? A fool-proof method? A result?

What do you expect when you pray?