Can we bear a bit of honesty? The Church has as a whole forgotten to
pray. We organize meals, put together
events, talk extensively about the Bible, argue over by-laws and form endless
numbers of committees but give prayer the once over and then we’re off to
something else. We pray and then try to
get something accomplished as if the accomplishing is not occurring in the
praying. The Disciples asked the Lord to
teach them how to pray. We know how to
pray. We don’t know how to start praying
with determination and abandonment to the work of prayer. Would Peter have been led out of prison by
the angel if the band of believers quartered in the home of John Mark’s mother had
not been praying? We cannot say for sure
one way or another but they certainly were juxtaposed with each other in the
Scripture. Would Lot have escaped Sodom
if his uncle were not praying? Would Job’s
friends have escaped judgment if Job had not prayed? Would Jericho have ever been taken if for
seven days straight the Israelites had not prayed? Given the stakes, why do we do so little
praying? The Lord insists that He will
do the heavy lifting if we would just put the shovel down for a while and
pray. The seeds need rain and sun and
good soil to bring about the harvest.
All of these required necessities come from God. Only the seed distribution is our
responsibility. If three-fourths of the
work is God’s and we must go to Him in prayer to gain His help in them, why do
we give most of our time to seed casting?
It is the praying that is the most critical part of the harvest because
to be brutally honest, we can chuck our seeds anywhere and God can make them
sprout right where they land. We have so little confidence God actually exists
and carries those who go to Him in prayer that we make prayer perfunctory and
everything else a necessity. Our Lord is
not scanning the horizon for better workers to bless; He is searching for more
faith-full workers who have come to rely upon prayer above all else to make it
through their days. Would the world
collapse in a heap if you gave an entire day to praying and reading the
Scriptures? Would your family be
crushed by the weight of your devotion to praying? Or might it just be that more can be done in
ten hours of prayer than a lifetime of plowing?
"When I shut up the heavens so that
there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among
my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and
pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from
heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2
Chronicles 7: 13-15 NIV
