There is a bridge that I walk over every day. And every day when I walk over it, I pray the same prayer.

Now, the word ‘bridge’ is perhaps poetic license for something much closer to a train station overpass, (what with it literally being a train station overpass), but if this blog opened with the line, “I have a train station overpass that I walk over every day”, I’m guessing you’d have stopped reading – and I think you know that’s true.

Anyway, semantics.

A couple of years ago, Pete Greig released a video encouraging people to take a piece of string or a leather band, whatever you had to hand, and tie five knots in it to represent five friends you’d love to see become Christians.

He said to tie that band around your wrist and pray for those people every day, one knot at a time.

My friend Toby took a strap, tied five knots and put it on his wrist. He prayed every day, and within weeks, miraculously and gloriously, four of his five friends had become Christians.

I took my strap, tied my five knots and put it on my wrist. I did not like the way it felt on my wrist. I remembered I had never liked wearing things on my wrist and I removed the strap. I put the strap in my jacket pocket. I took my jacket off. Soon after, I got a new jacket.

I do not know where the leather strap is.

Time went by, and, occasionally, I would remember to pray for my friends… and, often, I would forget.

But Toby’s story and Pete’s challenge always stuck with me, so I decided to find an alternative to the strap.

Now, as you know, there’s a bridge I walk over day. It takes three minutes to walk from one end to the other.

And so I decided, that for those three minutes, I would stop listening to what I was listening to, stop texting who I was texting, and pray for those friends.

One at a time, each day of the week.

The prayers aren’t well articulated, they’re often repetitive, but they are, as best as I can manage, faithfully prayed.

I don’t like wearing stuff on my wrists. Sometimes I forget my jacket. But I walk that bridge every day, and as long as I keep walking it every day, I pray on it every day.

And that’s it. Because sometimes, praying is easy.