24/7 Employment

Lord, I didn’t pray much today. I know that my spiritual life will not die when I am without discipline or our schedule is filled with other good things. However, prayer is important, not only because You command it, but because I need that intimacy with You, and because there is much need for prayer in the lives of those around me.

Today’s devotional readings are both about prayer. This is not a coincidence for I need You to push me back to work. You do it with the morning devotional verse where David is talking to You. 

And now, O LORD God, confirm forever the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house, and do as you have spoken. (2 Samuel 7:25)

He reminds You of the promise You made him and asks You to keep that promise. Prayer is bringing my life and the lives of others before You that You might do as You intend with us. To pray this way, I need to remember Your promises and talk to You about them.

The evening reading also uses the words of David. He has been falsely accused, but does not retaliate, not does this drive him to a pity party or other distractions. Instead, he says, “In return for my love they accuse me, but I give myself to prayer” (Psalm 109:4).

Spurgeon says this: “As a shadow has no power because there is no substance in it, even so that supplication, in which a man’s proper self is not thoroughly present in agonizing earnestness and vehement desire, is utterly ineffectual, for it lacks that which would give it force.”

He quotes someone else who said that, “Fervent prayer, like a cannon planted at the gates of heaven, makes them fly open.”

This is how David prayed. I blush to remember the day I was walking and praying, but also complaining. I said to You that spending so much time to pray was taking me away from my chore list. I had so much work to do and was feeling anxious about it. You came back to me most clearly with, “This is your work!”

Today, I’ve not worked very hard. I took only moments here and there to pray, I feel like I’ve been lazy, and worse, ignoring You. Then I read Spurgeon who says that the common problem of most Christians and prayer is that we so easily are distracted. “Our thoughts go roving hither and thither, and we make little progress toward our desired end. Like quicksilver our mind will not hold together, but rolls off this way and that.”

This is true and part of my problem. I was distracted today with shopping and reading. Prayer was hardly at the back of my mind, never mind the front. This insults you. As Spurgeon says, what would I think of a petitioner who was given an audience with a prince and he played with a feather or with catching a fly?

He is right when he says that prayer is not my chance work, but my daily business, my habit and vocation. I must addict myself to prayer, be immersed in it as my element, and pray without ceasing.

Lord, work in me that I might be more and more prevalent in prayer. Keep calling me to it, not allowing my laxness or distractions to keep me from the work You have given me.