Weekend Words

From A Lamp Unto My Feet...

Why Bother To Pray?

If God is sovereign and things will be as they are going to be anyway, why bother to pray?  There are several reasons.  The first is really all we need to know: God has told us to pray.  It is a commandment, and if we love Him, we obey His commands.

Second, Jesus prayed.  People sometimes say that the only reason for prayer is that we need to be changed.  Certainly we do, but that is not the only reason to pray.  Jesus was not being made more holy by prayer.  He was communing with His Father.  He was asking for things.  He was thanking God.  In His Gethsemane prayer He was beseeching the Father to prevent what was about to take place.  He was also laying down His own will.

Third, prayer is a law of the universe.  As God has ordained that certain physical laws should govern the operation of this universe, so He has ordained the spiritual law.  Books simply will not stay put on the table without the operation of gravity - although God could cause them, by divine fiat, to stay.  Certain things simply will not happen without the operation of prayer, although God could cause them, by divine fiat, to happen.

The Bible is full of examples of people doing what they could do and asking God to do what they couldn't do.  In other words, the pattern given to us is both to work and pray.  Nehemiah and the people of Israel worked hard to build the wall of Jerusalem but were strenuously opposed by Sanballat and Tobiah, who banded together with Arabs, Ammonites and Ashdodites to attack.  "So we prayed to our God," wrote Nehemiah, "and posted a guard day and night against them" (Nehemiah 4:9)

From Beside the Still Waters...

When at Wits' End - Read: Psalm 107:21-43

"For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves ... They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end." - Psalm 107:25-27

Have you ever found yourself in a difficult, distressful situation in which you exhausted every feasible possibility and were at a loss to know what to do?  You were up against a brick wall, so to speak.  Then you were where the mariners in today's Bible reading found themselves - helpless and hopeless!

But notice that God was in charge of the situation all along.  It was He who commanded and raised the stormy wind.  We might say that He allowed the natural processes He had set in motion to take their course.  But He was still at the helm!  And since He is God, the noise of the wind and the crashing of the waves did not drown out the cries of the distressed.  God stilled the storm and brought the mariners to their desired destination.

The Son of God demonstrated God's power over literal storms at sea when He was on earth, but what about the turbulences we sometimes experience on the sea of life?  Is God the Master over them too?  Just ask any true Christian.  Likely the answer will be somewhat like this: "Yes, if you cry to God in faith with a pure heart and request it of Him."  But he will probably add, "If it is God's will."

You see, the same power that can still a storm is also able to give peace to the soul amid the storm!  God may teach valuable lessons about the faith and endurance so needful in Christian experience, by letting the storm continue to rage.  Let's be convinced that divine power is available either to still the storm or to still our soul while in the storm - and let's utilize that power.

Dennis Martin - Smithville, TN

Pray always, not only when at wits' end.