So what comes after the Bible? Surely it has to be prayer. Where on earth (literally) would we be without prayer?
One of the biggest losses during lockdown is the freedom to speak to who you want, when you want. Those who used to enjoy family and friends regularly coming into their homes can no longer do so. Those who enjoyed a wander round the shops stopping to talk to those they know have lost that freedom. Praise God for the phone, Skype, Facetime, WhatsApp and all of these technologies that allow us to speak to and indeed see each other.
But as one who has made more phone calls in the last few weeks than I do in most years, I have been frustrated by the process on many occasions. How often do you phone or attempt to Facetime only to find the other person is not answering? Or you successfully make contact only to find that for some reason one or other one of you cannot hear the other person clearly enough. Or, half way through the call gets dropped. Or you get through only to find you’ve got the wrong person! And then you’re just getting into conversation with someone when you get an irritating noise on the line, look at your phone only to find someone else is trying to call you and you have the choice of dropping the call you’re on and taking the new one, rejecting the new one, or something else that I can’t even remember! And then when you finally get it all together you bellow down the line in an attempt to make the person at the other end, who really should have bought a hearing aid years ago, understand who you are!!
What a blessing prayer is! No missed calls, the person at the other end is never away, never too busy, never unable to hear. A call is never dropped, no-one else can ever cut in on your conversation. The person you speak to always knows who you are without any explanation, indeed He knows exactly what you want to tell Him or ask of Him before you start! You can pry at any time of day or night, and from any place on the face of this planet.
And yet for all of that, few Christians make as much use of prayer as they could. Why should that be? I can only really think of three reasons – firstly there are things that they think are too unimportant to pray about, second because they aren’t fully convinced that prayer will always work, or thirdly because they don’t feel really competent to pray.
Friend, nothing is too small to pray about. Our God rules the cosmos and yet He knows how many hairs are on your head and notes when a sparrow dies! Genuine prayer always works: that is to say that prayed by the Christian to the Father, directed by Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ, it will always achieve what God wants of it – it will fulfill His purpose in what He wills to do. And as to feeling competent to pray – who does? Wasn’t that the concern of the disciples when they asked Jesus to teach them to pray? Listen to Paul:
Rom 8:26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
Rom 8:27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
If the apostle Paul felt that he “didn’t know what to pray for as he ought” how can we expect to do any better BUT the same Holy Spirit lives in us who lived in him and He WILL intercede for us and Christ who is at the Father’s right hand will plead for us. Listen to how our prayers come before the Father:
Rev 5:8 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
What a beautiful picture of your prayers and mine. Friend, what should you value at this time? Prayer; value it and use it!