When was the last time you prayed? I know it’s a personal question equaled to “How much do you weigh?” But people are more apt to tell you how much they weigh then to tell you when they last prayed. The bible tells us that we should pray without ceasing, pray continually, never stop praying (1 Thessalonians 5:17). But why is it that we look at praying as our last resort instead of the first action step we take toward life? Why do we save the best for last and do the least first? Shouldn’t we do the best first?
All my life I was told to pray like everything depended on God and work like everything depended on me. This was ingrained in me from a small child. It helped me understand that if I prayed first and then did everything I could then God would answer my prayer. It also helped me understand that no matter how much I did, if I didn’t continually pray about the circumstances in my life, my life wouldn’t make sense. And it’s true life doesn’t make sense when we are constantly saving the best for last and doing our little part, the least first.
Pray without ceasing!
I’ve heard many times from different people in my life “Let’s try this first, if it doesn’t work out, then we’ll pray.” Or the one statement that really gets under my skin…”I’ve tried everything else, I guess a prayer couldn’t hurt!” Prayer is the key to my day and the lock at night. Many times growing up I always thought I needed to go through bad times so that I prayed more, because let’s face it when we’re going through rough days or trials we spend more time in prayer then when times are good. But praying without ceasing means that we should be praying just as much in the good times as well as the bad.
When my sons were little we used to pray together all the time. One day while we were walking to the summer enrichment summer school, it started to rain really hard. So as we walked we prayed and asked God to either make it stop raining until we got to school, or provide us with a way to stay dry. We had just finished our prayer when we all looked at the sidewalk a couple of feet ahead of us and there was a large umbrella laying in our path. My sons and I looked up and praised and thanked God for answering our prayer.
Don’t save prayer as the last resort. Yes, God knows what’s going on in your life, He sees everything, He knows everything, He even sees what’s in your heart. We can’t hide anything from God. So pray, thank Him for all the blessings in your life. Ask Him for help with your health, your job, your family. Pray for protection, pray for strength.
Life will always give us something to pray about.
Do the best first, pray.
