The Priority of Prayer

It is an interesting season in my life. I am transitioning from a focus on full-time ministry to splitting my focus between responsibilities with the rental house, sailboat, managing another property, and the ministry. The greatest challenge I have is finding time for creative work like writing this featured blog. I started this article weeks ago. Now June is past, and I finally have a moment to complete the work and get it sent to you. I am so far behind, but I am content knowing God is completely in control. How freeing that is!

If you read my last few blogs, you know I am asking a lot of questions about the way we do church in North America. I’m seeking God and searching his Word for answers to what it means to follow Jesus. In a previous blog, I wrote about how he has led me to pray daily for opportunities to share Jesus with those who do not know him and for opportunities to disciple others. I continue to do this. It is interesting to see how the mundane moments of life are transformed into opportunities for ministry.

Working outside of the ministry is a blessing. I enjoy living out my relationship with God in the everyday moments of life. In many regards, now my life is a better example of what it means to follow Jesus than when I was full-time in ministry. God has taken my focus from operating a ministry to ministering to others on a daily basis. I enjoy it. Most of us have jobs outside of ministry. We have family responsibilities. We may have kids in sports. We may have grandchildren. We may have responsibilities with school. Our lives are jammed with activity. Every day, in the midst of my packed schedule, I look for opportunities to share Jesus or to disciple someone. And the opportunities are all around me.

I continue to pray. Recently God impressed on me to pray for him to do something supernatural in North America. So now I daily spend time pleading with God to do something here. I pray for revival. I pray for repentance. I pray for God to move with power and authority. Again, I find it interesting he is not yet leading me to do anything except to pray. In my mind I know prayer is important, but God is reminding me to make prayer the priority above all else.

It occurred to me that God does not need me to start anything. I don’t need to start a new program. I don’t need to start a new model of ministry. I don’t need to start a church. He doesn’t need me to start anything. I only need to join him in what he is already doing with his Church. He started the Church thousands of years ago. Sometimes we make a mess of it. Through the years it often strays from what God intended, but it is still alive. He still draws people into relationship with himself. He still longs for a relationship with his creation. He still forgives sins. He is still calling us back to himself. We do not need to come up with a new program to make it happen. He will make it happen. We join him.

God led me to pray. That means, at this time, my job is to pray. So I take time out of my day to pray for God to do something in North America. That is my job description until he changes it. As I pray, I find my heart longing deeper and deeper for the church in North America.

The challenge is to be content with prayer alone until God says it’s time to move. We live in a results-oriented culture. We work hard. We get a paycheck at the end of the week. We strive for goals and celebrate the moments when those goals are met. In the physical realm, when we make something with our hands, we get to see the results of our labor. But when we pray, we don’t always get to see a result. Usually, there is no obvious physical connection between our prayer and an outcome. Because of this, we may minimize the importance of prayer. Our natural tendency is to let prayer slide so we can get back to work doing something for God. We unconsciously think, “I could get so much more done for God if I weren’t spending all this time in prayer!” How silly we are.

If and when God says, “Move,” I will gladly move. Until then, I will pray. I am convinced that prayer is the most important thing. It is more important than anything I could do. It is not an abstract theory. It is the truth. I am attempting to live this out. The question is, “What would God do if I would pray?” That, my friends, is a question all of us need to ask.

How about you? Is prayer an important part of your life? Do you believe when you speak to God, he listens? What would God do if you prayed?

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