As I feed my week flock of sheep, wash the dishes waiting in the sink, come with my little loaves and fishes to serve in community, work on my doctoral studies, peel the butternut squash for supper, I begin to whisper it gently to my soul:
Do not work so hard for Christ, that you make no time to pray to Christ.
He is the lifeblood of all work, all joy, all hope, all being, all communion.
“When I finally choose to pray while I work is when I finally embrace that He’s God… and I am not. “
I’m a slow learner: When I finally choose to pray while I work is when I finally embrace that He’s God… and I am not.
I don’t know where I was when the conviction struck me so hard it stung for days: The only reason we fail to pray, is because we’ve made an idol out of self. The only thing that prevents me from praying more — is me.
Lately, as I work, I just keep coming back to linger ith just this and it’s been tender: My prayer life reflects my theology — or my idolatry.
Unless I keep making time to genuinely pray as I work — other priorities betray how I genuinely think of Jesus as less important than my work.
The extent of prayer in one’s life is a direct function of whether something else has been set up as more important than God.
Before any of us head out to work, the last several years, we as a family, we have had this daily rhythm of prayer, of gathering in a circle in our kitchen as the sun comes up, and bowing our heads in prayer first thing, before any of us did anything else.
The house of our Lord is a house of prayer — and we’ve realized that prayer is the only way we can keep ours standing.
That’s all that happens when we circle up together as a family to pray: we just pray honestly. We pray vulnerably. Sometimes, we’re praying through tears. And every morning, praying before work, praying first thing, praying each one of us around the circle, we pray our hearts to the only One who can us a new heart.
This is what we do each morning in prayer: We return to our first love.
This is what we keep discovering: Prayer is not what we do before we begin our work. Prayer is our life’s work.
Prayer becomes what we live when we want to get hold of God, not just get a hold of what we want.
Real prayer isn’t about changing God’s mind, but about finding God’s heart, and letting His heart change our minds.
“The prayers we weave into the matching of socks, the stirring of oatmeal, the washing of floors, the coming and going and all the moments of our work, these survive fire.”
Maybe we are just slowly figuring it out: When we choose to enter a life of prayer, He enters into our thoughts, takes captive every thought because we are most captivated with Him, Him having first place in our hearts and hours and priorities — and the conversation never ends, and we have our heart’s real desire — communion with Christ.
“I know of no better thermometer to your spiritual temperature than this: the measure of the intensity of your prayer,” writes Charles Spurgeon.
I don’t know for how many years now, but as I work throughout the day, how I keep returning to this story of Abba Paul, that desert monk who wove baskets and prayers.
And while other monks lived close enough to cities to sell their handiwork in the markets, Abba Paul lived such a distance that the cost of transportation would exceed any profits from selling the baskets.
Nonetheless, each day he collected palm fronds and worked as faithfully as if basket making were his primary means of support. And come the end of the year, when his cave overflowed with long months of toil, he took torch to the work of his hands and the flames devoured and rose higher and cackled long into the night. Then, come morning, the heat died away, satiated.
And Abba Paul stood in the long quiet and the wind blew away the ashes of all his work.
It is not the products of our days that will matter in the end, but the prayers of our days.
Prayer is not just what we do before we work, nor is prayer what we do instead of our work. Prayer is our life’s work.
Because by and large the work of our hands, the to-lists, the plotting across planners, while all needful acts of service, these acts will become ash in wind. “[O]n the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value.” (1 Cor. 3:13-15).
What survives fire?
Our places of work won’t. Neither will the actual work of our hands. Abba Paul’s baskets didn’t. But what was wove into the baskets did — the prayers.
Ora et Labora — work and pray — but this is what is everything: weave prayers through all the work.
The prayers we weave into the matching of socks, the stirring of oatmeal, the washing of floors, the coming and going and all the moments of our work, these survive fire.
Return to your First Love — for prayer is nothing but love for Love Himself.
We become whole — when our breath becomes prayer.
Sacred Prayer: 90 Days of Deeper Intimacy with God
True, whole prayer — is nothing but love,” writes St. Augustine.
It’s a tender question: Is the only reason we don’t truly pray more, because we don’t truly love God and His people more? If one’s not praying regularly, is it only because something else is regularly loved more than God?
How can we journey together to discover the power and beauty of prayer and intimacy with God?
Real prayer isn’t about changing God’s mind, but about finding God’s heart, and letting His heart change our minds!
Prayer, communion, and connection with God is a life-changing discipline and gift. SACRED Prayer will strengthen your heart by:
- Growing your relationship with and faith in God
- Transforming you to be more like Jesus
- Aligning your thoughts and actions with His Word
- Reducing stress and worry and increasing your peace
Take this sacred journey of prayer over the course of the next 90 days and be in awe of how God moves in your life and in your heart!
When you need hope, the first place to look is by getting down on your knees.
Pick up SACRED Prayer & pick up a beautifully different kind of new year
