The Principles of Prayer LX

 For something to be considered consistent, it must be accompanied by a certain frequency of action. If someone were to ask if you worked out consistently, and you answered yes, followed up with how often, and you said about once a month, then the answer to the second question invalidates the possibility of truth to the first. If, however, your answer were five to six times per week, then the affirmation that you were consistent in your workouts would be proven true by the frequency with which you engage in it.

Do you have a prayer life? If the answer is yes, the next question you must answer for yourself is, are you consistent in it? If, again, the answer is yes, the third question is How often do you pray? Although the definition of consistency is subjective from one individual to another, there is a general metric by which we can gauge whether or not we are being consistent, and praying once in a blue moon, on the big Christian holidays, or every month, or every other week, does not meet the standard of consistency.

The widow came before the judge every day, without fail, because getting justice from her adversary was the single most important thing in her life. It’s easy to overlook the fact that it took effort, perhaps even sacrifice, for this woman to commit to appearing before the judge consistently if we fail to consider her likely emotional state during this time. Given that Jesus said she was a widow, it’s not an assumption but a certainty that this woman had been married, had known what it is to love, to lean on another, to have her husband hold her and tell her everything was going to be alright, to have the assurance that he would do all within his power to keep her fed and a roof over her head, and in an instant that was gone.

Rather than have someone to hold, she wept over the lifeless form of what had once been her husband, grief-stricken and emotionally distraught, yet even in her condition, she came before the judge day in and day out.

What’s my excuse, or yours for that matter, for putting off spending time with God? We must be consistent and persistent, not only when everything is going well, when there’s no one else vying for our time, or when we’ve finished the long list of honey-dos that somehow materialize every morning. What does it say about the value we place on spending time with God if all we ever manage to give Him are the scraps and leftovers? What does it say about how much of an existential need we believe our line of communication with Him to be when we can’t be bothered to come before Him for days on end, simply because life has gotten busy, or there are too many things on our plate already?  

What was the reason for the last time you missed spending time in prayer? What was the thing that was deemed more important in the moment that you put off being in God’s presence? This is not an accusation. It’s not my attempt at guilt-tripping anyone. It’s a question I’ve asked and answered for myself, because, yes, there have been times when I delayed my prayer time in lieu of something I deemed more pressing currently. Granted, they were extreme situations where I couldn’t break away for thirty minutes or an hour, but that’s not an excuse or a justification; it’s an explanation. Daniel could not abide not coming before God in prayer one day, never mind the thirty that the decree of the king mandated, because he could not bear to be absent from God’s presence in his life for any length of time at all.

Men prioritize what they value. If you value intimacy with God, you will prioritize your prayer time in such a way wherein it is consistent and frequent, letting nothing stand in the way of knowing the presence and touch of God.

Come before God often. It doesn’t matter what’s going on around you, what pain is roiling in you, what others might think about you when they see you preferring to spend time with God rather than with them because it’s chicken wing night at the local eatery. Be consistent and frequent in your prayers to God, and you will see the heavens open and the light of His love shine down.

The third example the widow sets forth is her deliberate intentionality. She knew exactly why she was coming before the judge day after day. She was purposeful in her request, making it clear what she was asking the judge to do. “Get justice for me from my adversary!” This was her heart's cry, every day, without fail, because it was the only thing she desired.

When we come before God, we do so with complete assurance that He knows all things. It is the very definition of omniscience. Nothing is hidden from His face; there is nothing He is not privy to, so rather than take a circuitous route to what it is we desire to ask of Him, it is wise and prudent to be as direct as the widow was.

Sometimes it’s because we know in our hearts that what we desire to ask of God is venal and vain that we are not as direct as we should be. We try to justify our selfish wants with layers upon layers of explanation as to why we need the new car, the big boat, the private jet, or the McMansion, somehow always managing to spiritualize it and attempt to convince ourselves—and perhaps God —that it’s for a reason other than what the real reason is.

Lord, if you give me a Gulfstream, I will make it available to any itinerant preacher who wants to get from here to there without charge. I’ve literally heard that explanation from a handful of people over the years. I’ve never been offered a free ride on a private jet as yet. Perhaps it’s because I don’t know the right people, or I’m not in the right clique, but the more plausible explanation is that the future promise of magnanimity was a feign if not an outright lie.

Lord, if you give me the McMansion I’ve been eyeing, I’ll have more room to house the homeless. Then, the moment they get it, they erect a ten-foot electric fence around it for fear of it being overrun by the unsavory.

We ask God for trivial things, attempting to be deceitful as to why we are asking for them, then feel slighted when what we asked for does not materialize, thinking God is incapable, rather than looking inward, searching our hearts and determining whether what we asked for was in line with Scripture, helping to grow our spiritual man, or something wholly self-serving and flesh oriented.

James 4:3, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.