This is my job

Last week someone who had just retired from employment asked me if I’d known the freedom of not having to work. I replied that I didn’t have a job, and with tongue in cheek said that I was a “kept” woman.

However, this is not true. I do have a job. God gave me the calling to love and obey Him, which can sometimes mean much hard work. I could say there is no pay, but the retirement benefits are out of this world, but old jokes aside, the hardest thing that I do each day is pray. Often I don’t feel like it, procrastinate, and sometimes fail to show up for work, yet clearly prayer, particularly for others, is a huge part of my job description.

This week God showed me how selfish my prayers can be. As I was praying for God to save those in my family who do not know Him, I recognized that some of what drives me to pray is a self-centered desire that life would be much easier for me if they were Christians.

After confessing this to God, I felt sort of blank. Without that drive I still wanted to pray for them, but wasn’t sure how, so I asked the Lord to show me what He wants me to pray concerning them. As usual, He answers my questions from His Word.

The first passage that jumped off the pages at me is Isaiah 57:15, “For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.’”

This section goes on to say that God does not contend forever with proud people because if He did, our spirits would fail. When we turn from Him, He will discipline us, but even when He does that, we tend to continue in our slide. However, He says that He will heal those who depart from Him and restore peace to their hearts.

I have to apply this first to myself. Pride cannot be part of my thinking when I pray. I cannot want my family to be saved so my heart can boast in what my prayers have done, or in anything I have contributed. It is God who saves, not me or my words and actions, and God who must get the glory.

At the same time, when I pray for them, I can ask God to recognize their inability to respond to Him. Pride does that to me, so I know that their pride is a huge barrier to knowing God. I can ask Him to humble their hearts and make them contrite before Him. He can do this with me so I know that He can do it in them.

The next verse that caught my heart is Isaiah 59:21, “‘As for Me,’ says the Lord, ‘this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,’ says the Lord, ‘from this time and forevermore.’”

God is speaking to Israel, but He also speaks to me. He promises that He will keep me focused on Him and His Word and even more, He will do the same for my children and their children. Can I claim this promise? As a member of His family, I believe that I can so I can pray that He will put His Spirit upon them and put His words in their mouths.

The next verse is 1 Timothy 6:12. It says, “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”

God tends to divert me from my questions about other people with direct commands about my own life, in this case, my prayer life, which is my job.

For this verse, my study Bible offers this footnote: “The Greek word for ‘fight’ gives us the English word ‘agonize,’ and was used in both military and athletic endeavors to describe the concentration, discipline, and extreme effort needed to win. The ‘good fight of faith’ is the spiritual conflict with Satan’s kingdom of darkness in which all (people) of God are necessarily involved.”

Essentially God is saying to me that how I pray isn’t as important as just doing it. I can ask for specifics as He reveals them to me, but I need to “get a grip on the reality of the matters associated with eternal life” so that I will live and pray with an eternal perspective. It is to this labor that I am called.