If we believed that prayer worked, we would do it more.
We place our belief in so many things without hesitation. We believe the sun will come up, and we plan our day accordingly.
We believe in meal planning, we look to it to make us more prepared for our week and help us feed our families nutritiously.
We believe in health insurance to get us prepared for accidents or injuries.
If we didn't believe in these things, we wouldn't spend time and money on them. There are countless other things that we beleive in, just like these. We know that if we put in the work, we get the results. I beleive in excercise. It does get results. Could I do it more? Definitely.
I think a lot of us are in that spot with prayer, just like we are with exercise. We dabble in it, but we don't get real and lasting results. We think it works, we just aren't sure it's worth it. We don't believe enough to let it actually change our lives.
We tend to look at prayer just like we look at exercise to prepare us for swimsuit season. We pray as a reaction more than a mindset. We will pray in earnest if we think it will help us escape from harm or discomfort. We pray in emergencies all the time, even people who say they don't believe in God do that. We will pray for a season...maybe. We will pray for a request from someone else, but rarely do we pray to get to know God. We have become a culture that is more interested in what God gives us than a relationship with Him and our prayer life reflects it.
There is little time for being still in this culture, in my life, and I'm guessing in yours too.
It takes being still to really hear God. I'm not saying that He is limited and that You cannot ever hear Him unless you are in your favorite chair in complete quiet with your Bible open. I will say, that's the situation I hear Him most.
I apologize, this blog isn't one that is going to make you simply feel better. It's my hope that something in these words will call you out, will call me out, for where we haven't really believed in prayer. We don't use prayer the way Jesus did. The Bible backs me up with examples of how God came to people in queit places. Jesus sought them out, early mornings and evening. It was His pattern for accessing God's presence.
I am going to warn you that it's a lot of unseen work. You don't get a lot of accolades for prayer, at least not in this life, but it is something that age can't take away. I can battle just as valiantly in prayer at 100 years old as I could at 20, in fact probably better.
So why, why do so many of us neglect this? We don't believe it really does anything.
I am going to confess that I really do pray a lot, this is a skill that I have taken the time to learn and I encourage others in it, but sometimes I go through the motions. Sometimes I forget that belief is so important, empty words mean very little.
In the gospel of John, Jesus talks about belief constantly. After feeding the five thousand in chapter 6, the crowd finds Jesus and ask, "What must we do to be doing the works of God?"(v.28)
Jesus answered them,
“This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
John 6:29
The Amplified Version translates it this way:
"that you believe [adhere to, trust in, rely on, and have faith] in the One whom He has sent.”
That word rely gets me every time. Am I relying on God which flows from knowing Him, talking to Him, and trusting Him? When I don't pray, I'm relying on myself. A benefit of believing prayer is that when things work out, I don't have myself to thank. I remember it was God.
Belief in the One that God sent is the work that He requires. If we believed, we’d pray.
Father,
We do believe, please help our unbelief.
(One of the best prayers I have found in the Bible from Mark 9.)
If you are interested in developing a pattern of prayer, Check out my newest book releasing March 4th!
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