On Work

Edith Schaeffer in her book The Tapestry says "Prayer is not just the icing on the cake of a so-called spiritual life; prayer is warm, close communication with the living God, and also matter of doing an active work on His side of the battle."

Hmm, somehow that idea that prayer is work on the side of God against the evil one brings reality to the idea of spiritual warfare. Paul says he wrestles with the flesh, doing what he doesn't want to do and not doing what he wants to. And so, honestly, do I. I have all these great visions of what I want to do and not do, and remember too often, my good intentions in the middle of my failure. It just struck me here, as I look at Schaeffer's words, how simple it is, how obvious it is, prayer matters.

It matters because it brings us into the awareness of the presence and will of God. The longer we stay away from prayer, the more often we whip through our prayer time with remembered words and our familiar list, the shorter time we allot to prayer, all of these lead to failure in this battle between God and the evil one for our good. It's really that simple. God desires only that which is for our good, that which leads to love, joy, peace and all the other fruit of the Spirit. Who can question that the fruit of the Spirit is desirable and leads to a happy and fulfilling life?

But it appears that we give way to the devil; we go into the battle for our good with our armor left back in the closet. We too seldom clear with the Father our plans. We too seldom wrestle over our desires and goals before Him, measuring them against His leading and pleading for His guidance. Instead we pray, God guide me today and be with my loved ones and the missionaries in the "corn fields." That's how one of my children heard that oft-repeated prayer requests. I think it made as much sense to her as it did to God, since he was already there with them, if they were believers.

Anyway, today I am challenged about the work of prayer. Work takes time and effort. It takes dedication to do well. I remember an aged lady in our church saying that all she could do now was pray, and I wonder if she wasn't doing the most important work of any believer in that church. She was waging war with the devil from her chair at home, holding up the rest of those who fling themselves into battle without much prayer-work.

I know I am generalizing here, but I wonder how much truth there is to it, how many battles christians have lost because we have an aversion to the work of prayer.