Time is Not On Our Side

We have twenty-four hours in a day... that’s it. We never get twenty-five. Sixty minutes in every hour of our lives. No matter how hard we try, we cannot squeeze any more time into a minute or an hour or a life.

All we've really got is Caffeine & Jesus and most of us are only accessing the coffee.

Time puts limitations on us. In our short lives we can only get so many things done, and the older you get, the more you will feel the pressure of time. It's sometimes unexpected squeeze can taint decisions or even incite fear.

I want you to think about God for a minute, and I want you to realize something that we often fail to realize. God created time. He made it so He is not in any way limited by it.

I am; He’s not.

I forget that sometimes.

If I bank my time in prayers that go directly to God’s feet, my prayers are traveling outside the bounds and limitations of time. My prayers aren’t limited at all; they’re in God’s hands. God controls time, and He can do whatever He wants with those prayers. He can use and reuse them over and over and over. Prayer places all my cares in His hands outside of time, outside of limits.

That adds a whole new value to prayer. Sometimes prayer feels like we aren’t doing anything when actually we are doing the most timeless thing we can do.

I know, I know, you and I both want to do something tangible about our situations. But if you are like me, my tangible solutions sometimes end me up in more trouble.

Prayer has never landed me in trouble.

I can get tangled in a sequence of events, or just the ideas in my head, not knowing which way to go or what to do. Praying works at untangling my thoughts and gives me a perspective shift so that I can see things through God's filter.

Prayer helps me focus on what is real and lasting in every situation.

Time in prayer is usually what we are most unwilling to sacrifice in any situation. We will spend time running scenarios, getting wrapped up in "What ifs", or trying to manipulate circumstances, but we won't bend our knees.

God wants the sacrifice of our time in prayer because He knows that He can make more of it than we can. He needs us to remember that things don't depend on us. If you are anything like me, you also need the reminder when the rescue comes that it wasn't you.

Sometimes I sound like a broken record. I'm pretty sure that almost every place I'm invited to speak, no matter the topic, I find my way back to prayer. I had someone tell me once that prayer isn't the answer to everything...I respectfully disagree. No, scratch that, I firmly disagree. Pray is the answer to everything. It isn't the way to get what we want; it is the way to get to God, which is what we actually need.

If you haven't really prayed in a while, can I ask why?

Really ask yourself....Why?

When you get an answer, call me if it's actually a good one.

Father, lead us to prayer as a people, as a church, as families, and mostly as individuals with deep needs. You are the only thing that can meet our needs. Help us stop trying to fix things ourselves and simply bend our knees.