Dear friends,  

You know you’re getting older when you can’t remember if you’ve done something recently or a long time ago. In last week’s blog post, I included a bookmark about change, which I had prepared some years ago. When Karen read the draft, she asked me if I had written about change recently. I answered that I didn’t think so, but later discovered that I had put this bookmark in a post three months ago. I should have paid more attention to Karen’s keen observation!

Karen and I are very grateful for all that the Lord is teaching us. In a booklet entitled “Prayer Changes Things,” James Banks writes: “Prayer should not only precede action, it is action of the highest kind because it gives God the priority He deserves. Prayer must permeate our actions by being a continual part of them as we consciously live in God’s presence. We are easily distracted, and we must fight to keep this perspective continually. It is not just a matter of ‘making time’ for God; it is the realization that all of our time is in His hands and that we are constantly before Him wherever we are and whatever we do. This is what it means to live day by day in a relationship with Him as Savior and Lord, and this realization helps us to pray increasingly ‘without ceasing’ (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Learning to give prayer higher priority takes time. It rarely happens immediately because we’re steeped in self-reliance. We have to unlearn old habits and patterns of thought. Evan Roberts, a minister in the early 1900s, prayed with real anguish, ‘Oh Lord, bend me!’ Roberts was trained as a blacksmith, and his words painted a picture of what happens when metal is forged on an anvil. Taking more time for prayer can be like that. God works with our wills and bends us in new directions. But gently, over time, we find new peace and strength in His presence.

God desires us to be prayerful people of action: people who pray first and then act in response to His leading. All of us are at varying degrees of keeping this balance. Sometimes we tell ourselves, ‘I am not much of a praying person.’ But because Jesus was a praying person, you and I are intended to become like Him. Because God loves us, sooner or later He will bring us to our knees.

Prayer and action are two sides of the same coin of a mature and Christlike faith. Action without prayer, even if it’s done for God, too often misses the mark.

A missionary to India during the early 1900s learned this balance in a beautiful way. She had been frustrated by a lack of results in her work. She then decided that instead of asking God to bless what she was already doing, she would give prayer a new priority in her ministry. This wasn’t easy at first, because she continually thought of things she ‘should’ be doing as she started each morning on her knees. She often felt guilty, as if she wasn’t working hard enough. But soon she discovered that prayer was work. It required special effort in a way she had never known before.

She was astounded by the transformation that followed. She wrote a friend,

Every department of the work now is in a more prosperous condition than I have ever known it to be. The stress and strain have gone out of my life. The joy of feeling that my life is easily balanced, the life of communion on the one hand and the life of work on the other, brings constant rest and peace. I could not go back to the old life, and God grant that it may always be impossible.

This is the work that changes the world. Prayer is the vehicle God uses to take us to new places of grace. When we pray, we willfully remove ourselves from the driver’s seat. But our Father pulls us close and whispers His will to us. He will steer us in the direction we need to go.”

May we ask the Lord to guide us, taking all of our concerns to Him, knowing that He has promised to be with us and to provide all that we need.

Scripture for the weekend: “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.” 1 Corinthians 2:12 (NKJV)

Thought for the weekend: “Not a sparrow falls to the ground without His seeing it. Not a problem arises without His knowing it. Even when we do not understand, we can trust. And when we trust, joy breaks through the clouds like rays of sunshine. We can also reassure ourselves that someday we will understand it all better.” – Dr. David Jeremiah (from his Study Bible, reflecting on Exodus 5:22)

Steve