“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful” (Colossians 4:2)

Every year we have the National Day of Prayer. I am glad we have a National Day of Prayer because it makes a statement about our country’s roots. It shows that there is at least enough support left in our country to still have some special “spiritual” days on our federal calendar. I may be in the minority on this as a Christian, but I often wonder if “special days” like this are more symbolic than effective. For example, let’s say for a moment that we have a national day of healthy eating. One day a year the country is bound together by brussel sprouts, salad bars, and tall glasses of ice cold water. It might be a nice statement we are making about good eating habits, but it will do very little for our bodies after that single celebration. If the next day reverts back to pizza and the bottomless french-fry plate, I am not sure we will see anyone from the cover of a Harlequin romance staring back at us from the mirror.

The Colossians verse above does not have an attachment that says “one day a year” preceding the verse. Devoting ourselves to something means to show love, loyalty, or enthusiasm. Devotion seems to indicate an “all the time” activity and not just a “part of the time” activitity. If we only show love for our family members on their birthdays and the rest of the year ignore them, I am not sure they will be that appreciative. It is somewhat like the woman who said to her husband on Sunday morning, “Why don’t we do something different for once. You treat me nice on the way to church, and yell at me once we get there.”

I bet there are a lot people out there who would like to work on Labor Day and take the rest of the year off, but that would be a tough way to make a living. Consequently, I think God would trade our prayerfulness on the National Day of Prayer, for our prayers on the other 364 days of the year.  A “National Day of Prayer” should not be the “Only Day of Prayer” for believers. It is nice to come together on a special day of prayer emphasis, but it will never substitute for a year-long habit of prayer.

I believe it is wonderful to set aside a specific time each day to meet with God. But let’s say that, for whatever reason, it is difficult to find an extended time period to sneak off all alone to read, intercede, or talk to God. First of all, it should not be like brushing our teeth for the full two minutes daily (a tedious venture that often seems like 20 minutes). I will admit, sometimes I stop my toothbrush before the time is up because it just seems to be eating into valuable time. But what would it be like to only brush our teeth once a year because it seems tedious at times.  Prayer should not feel like that kind of task every day, but unfortunately, it can often feel that way.

One of the neatest prayers I ever heard uttered was at a banquet for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Bobby Richardson, former New York Yankee second baseman, offered a prayer that is beautiful in its brevity and poignancy: “Dear God, Your will, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. Amen.” That didn’t take long, but it said it all. It recognized who God is, what He can do, and submits our requests to His will. I think we sometimes think that if we can’t sit down for an hour of prayer, we can’t sit down at all.

The other day I mowed all the lawn at our house.  It went well, but sometimes I don’t start the lawn at all if I can’t get the whole thing finished at one time. That is pretty silly. It is not like a haircut and if the barber stops in the middle it will cause a stir when we leave. But yet, we sometimes think prayer is like that. If we think about starting but can only pray for ten minutes when we have enough prayers for an hour, we decide we shouldn’t start at all. Not starting at all is not the solution. We need to start because nothing is ever done without starting.

We need to prioritize our prayer list just like anything else in our lives. There are certain things we should pray about daily and other things maybe weekly. There are several hundred countries that need prayer everyday, but Operation World and God do not expect us to pray for them all every day. We pick out a couple of countries and bring them before God each day and God listens to our hearts. All prayer is like that. In our own friendship and family circles, we have hundreds of prayers. We need to pray for unbelievers belief and believers strength. We cannot fit them all in daily.

If we have something come to mind while we are praying we can bring it before God. During my prayer time last week I had someone come to my thoughts who hadn’t crossed my mind in months. I prayed for him. Then at our elder’s meeting, his name and situation came up and we were asked to put him in our prayers. I guess God just gave me a heads up a little early. If we need to pray about something, I think it will pass our way and then we need then to act on it.

God has told us ‘If you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.” (Jeremiah 29:12) That is a wonderful promise. We may not be like Praying Hyde who wore the knees out on his pants monthly because he would pray hours a day, every day, but we can give God the respect He deserves by coming before Him often. It takes me 23 minutes to drive out to Camas every day. That does not change unless there is a slow, lumbering truck- behind me honking his horn, and then I speed up. That is 23 minutes I can go to God (I never close my eyes). In that time I can intercede for many. I can always remember my close family and friends and if there are critical prayer needs I can jot them on a paper and clip them to my visor (it is not dangerous, a glance at the paper  takes the same amount of time as glancing at my speedometer- which I do all the time especially when I am approaching 50 mph).  What more important things can we think of on our way to work than prayer? There are none.

I will continue this posting next week, but my thought is this. God would rather we give Him time every day, rather than one day a year. Throughout the day we will get reminders if we open our hearts to it. When I was young everyone around me would remind me to pray. My mom would say, “You better pray that stain comes out,” or at school my friends would say, “You better pray your dad doesn’t find out,” and even my principle would say, “You better pray I won’t decide to tell you parents about this.” Everyone was encouraging me to have a strong prayer life! The truth of the matter is this, we have much to bring before God and we
need to do that wherever and whenever we can.

Psalm 81:10 says, “Open your mouth wide and I will fill it!”  If some of us brushed as little as we pray, it wouldn’t be God saying these words in Psalms, it would be our dentist! Prayer is not a yearly thing; it is a daily thing. Let us pray, every day.