Not only do we have the greatest resource in the world, and leave it unused too often, but we make excuses why we don’t use it! If you read the last blog, you get that we are talking about prayer.
Somehow Christians have normalized prayerlessness. But it is not normal. If I went to the doctor and told him I haven’t eaten anything in 2 weeks, he would say something is wrong…because that isn’t normal. Normal is eating. Prayerlessness is the same. Normal, for the believer, is praying.
I wondered one time, “Has there ever been anyone who doesn’t need to pray?” And my knee-jerk reaction was, “Jesus: did He need to pray? He, being God, didn’t need to repent, had all knowledge… maybe He is the only one who didn’t need prayer.” But the Bible shows us over and over - Jesus was constantly devoted to prayer!
One verse in particular is Mark 1:35, which says, “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.”
This verse is an excuse killer for me. And it must be for you. Jesus “shuts up” our excuses. Let’s see how He does it for the top three excuses:
“I don’t have time.” - Where does the time go? I have to ask myself that about twice a week. Have you ever kept a “time log“? I had to as a project for ministry work a few years ago. I was amazed at how much time is spent on some things, and comparatively how little is spent on others (yes, like praying!). I spent 3 hours watching a ball game, but when it came to talking to the God of the universe? No time for that? Here is a truth that is across the board: people always have time for what they to have time for. Jesus took advantage of time by getting up very early in the morning.
“I’m too busy.” - This is the tag-team partner of the previous excuse. Too busy. Too much work here, too much running around there. Jesus was pretty busy. But He made prayer a priority. He got up early and got away from it all by going to adesolate place . Before I do anything, I got to get away from everything, and get on my knees in prayer.
“I’m just not sure how to pray” - Jesus taught us exactly how to pray, and we’ll look at what He said next time.
p.s. - no excuses