July 7, 2004
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Unwillingness to Pray
realized this weekend why most people are unwilling to pray:
1. there is no recognition, fame or glory that goes with praying. you pray in the private of your own room for others, and most of the time you cannot and need not tell people that you have prayed for them. as you pray, you will get to see lives changed, and your faith is strengthened, but there is no self-glory in that. usually no one to praise you or thank you. for those who seek to be recognized and affirmed for their righteous deeds, this concept does not seem very appealing.
2. praying is laborious. real prayer is difficult. i have found myself avoiding true intercession for others because i am afraid to enter into that place where i must feel the heartache and pain of others. i have skirted around it often, not praying the real prayers that need to be prayed because i am afraid to press into the heaviness of really considering where these people are at. when you truly enter into God’s presence, you begin to see things as God sees and feel things as God feels. but we’re afraid to go there because it seems like too much for a mortal to bear! but that latter is a lie, of course. and selfish.
3. in true prayer, you enter into God’s presence and you MUST be vulnerable before Him, you must lay yourself out there – naked and uncovered. that is the hard part. you simply cannot get before a Holy God and avoid coming face-to-face with your ugly, sinful self. most of us dread such a prospect. that is why we avoid entering His presence.
I think I am guilty of all three. All three hinder me from actually pushing on into God’s presence. But why should this be so? Three arguments against the above problems:
1. my significance should not be in what others think of me, in how much praise or recognition I can attain. my worth is in what the Lord thinks of me. and in fact, the best part of prayer is the gain in intimacy with the Lord of heaven and earth – not in what material/tangible returns that I can gain.
2. it is worth it to labor on behalf of others. to feel as they feel, to pray and serve them in this manner.
3. it is good to see my sinful self, so that I can offer it up to Him to be sacrificed and crucified. only in the dying of self can there spring forth new life. new life in me – a holier more sanctified self that is more similar to my Holy Lord.
Seriously, though, there is nothing more worth it in heaven or earth than going deeper with God. And if that means painful yet unrecognized toil (in the eyes of men), then so be it! The gain is worth the cost – when the gain ricochets off the walls of eternity. The gain is worth the cost when the gain is Christ and cost is merely “self.” I need to pray more. Amen.
