Why should I be praying?

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I was talking with a fellow in our neighborhood the other day (I’ll call him Bob here) and he brought up the subject of my profession.

Bob asked me the simple question, “What did you do before you retired?” I replied simply that, “I was … still am … a minister!”

That sparked a discussion on ministry, on our church home, and on Bob’s need for a relationship with God. He then began to tell me how “the man upstairs” had been very good to him throughout his lifetime, and “I don’t deserve it,” he proclaimed.

I asked Bob if he ever found himself praying. He answered me, “All the time!” He then went on to say that he prayed whenever he found himself in situations he could not handle, primarily in medical situations that he knew were beyond his control.

When I asked him if those were the only times he prayed, Bob asked me a very simple question: “Doesn’t God expect us to take care of things here on earth while he takes care of things in heaven? Why else should I pray?”

My friends, that is a great question, isn’t it? I mean really, why should we pray at all?

Now I know, some of you are saying it is a trite question with a standard answer –“because we are commanded to”, but the truth of the matter is that most of us – myself included – do not pray as we ought to pray!

If we are honest with ourselves, we may read and acknowledge as true the Bible verse in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, where we are commanded to “pray without ceasing.” But we also admit that we do not do that because “we are only human” and cannot be expected to never stop praying.

I mean, after all, if I pray while I am driving, who will watch the road? If I pray while I am at work and on the job, who will actually do my job? If I am praying while I am playing with my kids or grandkids, who will watch them and really play with them?

Yes, most of us will admit to praying when we find ourselves in desperate situations. Sometimes, that is called “foxhole praying.” You have heard the expression, “There are no atheists in foxholes,” right?

We find ourselves pinned down in some desperate situation and in that moment, in those times when we realize we cannot accomplish something without some sort of divine intervention, whether we have ever done so or not before, we go to God in prayer.

Steve Abbott writes that, in looking at the life of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels, there are (at least) three reasons that we should pray.

First we should pray because it shows that we always need God. Throughout Jesus’ life and ministry, from the very beginning until his final breath on the cross, we find Jesus praying. It did not matter whether he was getting baptized by John the Baptizer, choosing the 12 disciples who were to follow Him, or facing the agony of the cross in Gethsemane. In each of those instances and more, we find Jesus praying! There was nothing that Jesus did without praying. He even said it was so: “I can do nothing on my own.” (John 5:30) If Jesus needed to pray, so do you and I.

The second reason we should commit our lives to prayer is because we want to know God better. Prayer begins with a relationship with God, and the primary purpose of prayer is to deepen that relationship. It is when we forget that is the primary purpose of prayer that we stop praying except in case of emergency.

Most of us grow up thinking about prayer and seeing prayer as asking for things. In some ways, that IS the basic definition of prayer. We learn to pray by saying, “God, help me with this. God, give me this. God, bless me with this. God, protect me.” Or we pray for others, and so we pray the same thing: “God, help them. God, protect them. God, bless them. God, keep them and be with them.”

Prayer is far more than just asking God for things. It is all about deepening the relationship with God, and getting to know Him better. I mean, after all, God already knows what you want before you ask Him (see Matthew 6:8), so it has to be more than that!

The third reason we should commit our lives to God in prayer is to surrender to His plan for our lives. If in our praying we connect with the living God who is the Lord and Creator of the universe, then we will be connected to a power that is infinite and unstoppable.

Prayer in and of itself is powerless. But when prayer is a means by which we connect in a vital relationship with God, then we will see incredible power.

God is the one who has all power — not our praying. The way we connect with that power is through surrender.

Tim Keller, in his book entitled Prayer, sums it up with this personal story: “Imagine you were diagnosed with such a lethal condition that the doctor told you that you would die within hours unless you took a particular medicine — a pill every night before going to sleep. Imagine that you were told that you could never miss it or you would die. Would you forget? Would you not get around to it some nights? No — it would be so crucial that you wouldn’t forget, you would never miss.

Well, if we don’t pray together to God, we’re not going to make it because of all we are facing. I’m certainly not. We have to pray, we can’t let it just slip our minds.”

Why pray? Because you cannot live without it!

God bless …

Chuck Tabor is a regular columnist for the Times-Gazette and the News Journal. He is also the former Pastor of Port William UMC.

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Chuck Tabor

Contributing columnist

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