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Good morning. ‘It’s at times like this, that I wish I were a religious man’’, says ��ѿ��ýr Simpson, when it seems a comet cannot be stopped from destroying Springfield. In the background, the cartoon embodiment of religion, Reverend Timothy Lovejoy is running away saying ‘It’s all over people, we haven’t got a prayer’. At the beginning of this week of Brexit debate and vote, it may be tempting to agree with some commentators that disaster looms and we are stuck in a doom-loop. Meanwhile, a number of Christians including myself have been following the lead of the Archbishop of York and regularly praying for the process. But is this a complete waste of time? As someone said to me the other day, ‘What do you expect God to do?’ Now I am not expecting God to change political minds so that they agree with me, as if with ‘God on my side’ my will is done! Nor do I expect that somehow miraculously today God will give MPs an easy and perfect compromise, a Heaven ++ deal. I do believe, on the basis of the resurrection of Jesus, that God can act in unusual ways in the world. But God’s freedom to act respects his gift of human free-will expressed in democracy, and a degree of unpredictability in the physical processes of the world. For me prayer is located in the interaction of these types of freedom, encouraging me to be open to rather than demanding God’s answer. As Archbishop William Temple once said, “When I pray, coincidences happen, when I don’t they don’t.” Some will say that prayer is only a way of calming our minds in the midst of difficult circumstances, fiddling while Rome burns The trouble is that prayer is much more than that for me. It is in prayer that I feel that God changes my mind and provokes me to action. This is often the case when praying with others. I see new possibilities, am reminded of the importance of grace and generosity, and I become conscious of the needs of others compared with my own. Prayer stimulates hope and subverts the fatalism of nothing can be done. Today the current Archbishop of Canterbury raises questions to politicians of how a no deal brexit will affect the poorest and most vulnerable. At the same time he says that he prays for wisdom, courage and strength for them in such difficult decisions. As a fellow Christian, I too want to use the gift of freedom by participating in the democratic process, without ignoring the possibilities of prayer.