14 February 2009
What are the situations that force us to pray?
Perhaps someone you know is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, or you feel the strain on a valued friendship. Maybe you're facing an important decision. These are things which have made me consciously pray more over the last year. I guess at the moment, lots of people have begun praying with panicked enthusiasm about their jobs or money situation.
We pray most when we feel a need for God's help most. When we feel least able to cope with a situation in our own strength. When events are beyond our control.
Which is madness really. Because at no point in our lives are we in control anyway. We bustle around, with this plan or that programme in mind, eagerly filling our lives with busyness.
We're particularly like this when it comes to our Christian lives. Work for Jesus only counts if it produces good attendance at an event, a good number of conversations with people, or generates a measurable amount of interest.
It is arrogance that blinds us. Our pride says "I can do this. I can make this work, so long as I put the effort in." In a 24/7 culture which never sleeps, where to be busy and active is to have meaning and purpose, I shy away from the seemingly tame and ineffective work of prayer.
It's much easier to invite a friend to a jazz night at church than it is to commit to praying daily for them. It's much easier to move chairs, or help organise, cook or steward than it is to get down on my knees and pray with my whole heart for God to work in my church in mighty ways. It's much easier to spend a prayer meeting talking about prayer than it is to actually do it.
I need God so much. Every moment of my day is watched by him, and is utterly under his care. Every day I cycle 20 minutes to work, and the reason I don't get hit by a bus is because God in his grace is keeping me safe. The reason I have food to eat each day is God. The reason I have a job is God. The reason my heart has been faithfully pumping blood around my body for 25 years is that God in his grace is allowing me to live another year. So that I can rely on him, and enjoy his grace, giving thanks to him. So that he might get the glory from my little life.
God is the one who holds the world in the palm of his hand, not me. I need constant humility to see that. And when I do see that, I'll realise that prayer is not weak and ineffective. It's powerful and wonderful.
In prayer, I can ask God, and keep asking, knowing that he is good, and loves to answer. Praying for my friends will do far more than just trying to convince them they need Jesus on my own. Only God can change their hearts - why don't I ask him, plead with him to do so more?
We can learn loads from the Chinese church, and the Korean church. They don't have the wealth of Christian books, programmes and resources that we have. They have something far more powerful.
Back in the 1960s, when the Communists shut the doors to gospel workers in China, and turned up the heat of government persecution, the church turned in it's weakness, to prayer. Now, a few decades later, as God's answer to those prayers, the Chinese church is thriving, with millions of Christians worshipping Jesus across China.
A few years ago, a group of Korean pastors came to visit a friend's church in the UK, to learn from their wisdom. Each morning, they would get up at 5am to pray together before their day. It was the habit of their church back in Korea. When the Korean pastors returned home, it was the UK church who had learnt more about true gospel strategy!
Prayer is an expression of our need for God. That need is real, constant and permanent - we will never reach a point in our Christian lives where we don't need God, even for one second. To live a Christian life without an attitude of constant, ongoing prayer, is to have allowed pride to blind us to our true need. Ministry programmes, evangelistic events, strategies, and busyness are like puny penknives when held up next to the glinting sword of reliant prayer.
