Some time ago, my wife called me to tell me she had a flat tire. I drove to meet her where she had pulled over on the side of the highway. After removing the bad tire, I pulled my spare tire. To my surprise the spare tire was low on air.
Many years had passed since I had my last flat tire. A spare tire is just something I don’t pay attention to until I need it. As they say, “out of sight, out of mind.”
Some people are kind of like that with prayer. As long as life seems OK or is manageable, they don’t give due attention to communication with God. It is only when all hell breaks loose in their life that they take prayer seriously. But one of the best ways to assure that God will hear us when we are desperate for Him is to talk to Him regularly even when all seems well in our life.
During His public ministry, Jesus taught a parable to encourage us to pray always and to never lose heart (Luke 18:1). To be effective in prayer, we must employ both of these principles—pray at all times and never faint or give up.
To pray always does not mean we must pray 24/7. Even Jesus didn’t do that. But it does mean we should pray fervently and daily. It also means we should not be legalistic about prayer. It may be our custom to pray in the morning before we start our day and at night before bedtime. But we should regard anytime and every time as prayer time.
What Our Prayer Life Says About Us
Why should we pray to God? For one, He is our heavenly Father. If we love Him, we will enjoy talking with Him. That’s what a person does when he or she loves someone. A person who says he loves God but seldom talks to Him by way of prayer does not love God.
We should pray to God also because He is our provider. All good and perfect gifts come from the Father above (James 1:17). Accordingly, we should offer prayers of thanksgiving to God often. For instance, I whisper thanksgiving to God whenever I leave the grocery store or the gas pump. I am thereby acknowledging God as my provider of these things. How can we be thankful to God for His goodness to us if seldom say thank You?
And what about the time before you begin your road trip or flight and after you arrive at your destination safely? Do you give thanks to God for safe travels? Doing so is a way of acknowledging Him as your Keeper.
I could go on with my case. But I think you get my point. Our prayer life says a lot about what we believe or don’t believe about God’s role in our life. Prayer should not be used like we use a spare tire. But that’s what we are doing if we pray only during trying times in our life.
We will pray daily and faithfully if we love our heavenly Father, we believe He is the source of the blessings we enjoy, and that He is the One who watches over us.
To me, it is hard to understand a person’s claim of accepting these things as being true about God when that person lacks a genuine commitment to pray to God.
Don’t Lose Heart
Not only did Jesus say we should pray at all times but also that we should not lose heart in prayer. Sometimes, the trials of life can make it hard for us to pray. We may feel inclined to lose heart because little or nothing seems to be changing as a result of prayer. Our spirit is willing, but our flesh is weak.
Perhaps that’s where some of you find yourself today as you read this post. I too have been in that undesirable place in my life in the past. I found it hard to pray because I felt so heavily weighed down by what I was dealing with.
During that time, God seemed so far away. I was a church pastor. I was preaching about faith in God and the faithfulness of God, but nothing was happening for me. Though a wounded soul, I showed up every week in the pulpit to minister life to the people of God.
It took everything in me to press my way and to tarry before the Lord in prayer. But I knew He was my only hope. And that, “In due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (Galatians 6:9, KJV).
That’s why you must not lose heart in prayer.
Actually, the spare tire analogy should have no place in the life of a Christian. That’s because we always need prayer because we always need God–even when it seems as if we don’t because all is well.
Copyright © 2024 by Frank King. All rights reserved.