The Principles of Prayer XLV

 Jesus went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day because it was His custom to do so. You come before God with prayer and supplication because it is something you’ve grown through consistency, not only to gain strength from and interact with God through, but because you likewise understand its importance in your spiritual walk. An individual without a prayer life is spiritually stunted. It isn’t an elective, it’s mandatory.

With the advent of the new school year, my eldest daughter will have the option of electives. It’s a new experience for her, and we’ve been poring over the different classes her school offers, from creative writing to a course on C.S. Lewis to pottery, painting, and a handful of other things she is keen to try her hand at. During our discussion of which two classes would best suit her creativity, she pointed out that it would be a lot more fun if her entire school day could be made up of electives, rather than history or math, because the electives seemed more fun. They may well be more fun, but none are as necessary as the fundamentals of mathematics or understanding history, so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Learning how to weave wicker bowls is all well and good, but if you find yourself working at a coffee shop and can’t make change for a two-dollar cup of coffee from a five-dollar bill, you’ll wish you’d learned to add and subtract when the opportunity presented itself. As is often the case with many things in life, you will never truly understand the benefits of prayer until you come to the point of having to rely on it for your spiritual strength and endurance.

Jesus knew. He understood and, therefore, made it a priority to take time to fellowship with the Father. It’s not as though His schedule was light or there weren’t a thousand other things He could have been doing, but because He knew the value of time spent alone with God, He made it a priority.

Mark 1:35, “Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.”

That Jesus took the time to pray should tell us everything we need to know about the importance of prayer. The first thing Jesus did to start His day was to pray. He chose when, He chose where, and He chose the length of time He would spend in prayer, but whether or not He would do it was never in question. Jesus did not see prayer as optional.

A long while before daylight, Jesus went out and departed to a place He knew He wouldn’t be bothered, a solitary place, away from prying eyes or whispering tongues, and there He prayed.

We cannot know exactly how long before daylight Jesus rose, but the wording of Scripture, which insists that it was a long while before, suggests that it wasn’t a handful of minutes. Another relevant truth that jumped out at me while contemplating this verse is that Jesus didn’t attempt to pray while lying abed, but physically went out and departed. Is it mandatory? No, but it's something worth noting, especially for those who are halfway hoping to get back to sleep and use prayer as their version of counting sheep.

There was purposeful intentionality to Christ’s actions, and the purpose was to be alone with God and pray. He didn’t use prayer as a foil or as a means to achieve a different end, but as the purpose of His action.

Depending on one’s constitution, being still can be the most difficult thing you’ll ever have to do. My wife is one of those individuals who runs full throttle from the moment she wakes, to the moment she drags herself wearily to bed. There’s always something to do and a dozen things that haven’t gotten done, and to her, there’s no such thing as warming up the engine or letting it idle. It’s neutral to sixth gear, bypassing the other five, pedal to the metal, and off we go.

After twenty-five years of marriage, I’ve managed to tame her all-go, no-slow attitude if only slightly, and since I’m the opposite of her, wherein I like my routine, especially in the morning, she’s managed to rub off on me as well.

There are the types of people who consider that if they don’t return from a vacation more exhausted than when they left, it was wasted money; then there are others, like me, who just want to sleep in, sit in the shade, and watch the world go by. More often than not, we’ll meet somewhere in the middle, and usually, I don’t get back home more exhausted than when I left, but as exhausted as when I left.

Stillness, being alone with God, tuning out everything and everyone else, and focusing solely on fellowship with Him, is more powerful than most realize today, because they’ve never had the experience. There’s always something to distract, there’s always something to vie for their attention, there’s always some sound, some ring, some ding, some robotic, nasally voice informing you that you’ve got mail, or that you’re of an age where you should really consider a prostate check just to make sure everything’s honky dory.

Sometimes even an unexpected noise somewhere in the house is enough to break our focus and concentration, and rather than consciously continuing to pray and seek God’s face, our mind begins to wander, thinking about what the sound might have been, what it could mean, and although it never happened in the long years you’ve been living in the same home, begin to consider that someone has broken in, not realizing you have nothing worth stealing unless a colorful wool blanket you bought at a sale for twenty bucks is the thing they’re after.

There will always be something that will try to keep you from spending time with God, and it is our duty to make sure that nothing interferes or takes away from the time we set aside to fellowship with Him.

Psalm 27:14, “Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.