"I Found The Answer, I Learned To Pray”

Never has there been a song that had more truth to it than that particular song.

From cover to cover, the Bible teaches us the same thing this song teaches us: the answer to life's problems is prayer.

Some never learn that lesson because they never read their Bible or attend a church where this is really emphasized.

• Have you noticed the large number of people in our society who walk around complaining, as they face certain situations, “I do not know what to do?”

• There are others who do read their Bible from cover to cover, and they still have not discovered that prayer is the answer to all of our problems.

Prayer is our source of help. But when a child of God prays, their prayers tell us something about them, such as:

I. IT SHOWS THAT THEY RECOGNIZE THEIR DILEMMA

As we face life’s difficulties, we should recognize two things:

(1) There are problems WE CAN handle

God EXPECTS US TO HANDLE the things in life that WE CAN HANDLE!

• Some Christians remind us of parents that have grown children, and they are still taking care of these children who should be taking care of themselves. THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG IN THIS SITUATION.

• Some Christians remind us of the hobos who stand on the street corner. They are perfectly healthy, but there they stand, holding their hands out, wanting someone to take care of them. Listen, they should take care of themselves. THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG IN THIS SITUATION.

• Some Christians remind us of the liberals in this land. They want the taxpayers of this land to pay for their houses, baby sitters, health care, and medicine. Listen, the only thing they should be asking from Uncle Sam is the lifting of these heavy taxes that government has imposed on us, so we can take care of ourselves. THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG IN THIS SITUATION.

Listen, when a nation, a church, or parents teach their children, their church members and their citizens not to depend on themselves, they are not helping them, they are destroying them.

The Lord expects us to take care of the things that we can take care of in our lives.

For example, remember when the Lord came to Lazarus’ tomb? There was a large rock there, and he told some men to remove the stone.

Now if the Lord wanted to, He could have said, “Stone be thou removed and cast into the sea,” and that stone would have been plucked up and cast into the sea.

But He did not do this. When it came to this stone being removed, it was something they could do, and the Lord told them to DO IT! The things we can do, God expects us to do.

A lot of people are waiting for God to do something, and God is waiting for them to do it.

There are problems we can handle, and ...

(2) There are problems WE CANNOT handle

In this life, we come into contact with some difficulties we cannot handle. We do not have the resources to deal with these problems.

For example, when the Lord came to Lazarus’ tomb, the men there had the strength and the knowledge to roll the stone out of the way, and God expected them to DO IT!

But when it came to raising Lazarus from the dead, this was something they could not do, and he had them stand back and LET HIM DO WHAT THEY COULD NOT DO!

God will help us if we will turn to Him to do what only He can do.

But so many times in life, when we face the difficulties of life, we turn …

• TO OURSELVES

• TO OTHERS

but not to the Lord Jesus.

It is only when situations in our lives get desperate that we will turn to God.

WHY ARE MEN LIKE THIS?

It is because most of the time they feel that they can handle life’s situations without the help of God.

We live in a society where people have made themselves little gods, and they are convinced that 99% of the time they can survive without calling on God. The reason they do not call on God is because they feel no need to do so.

There are those who say, "Preacher, I don't have time to pray!" Time is not their problem! Their problem is that they have too much confidence in SELF and OTHERS, and not enough in God, and that is why they do not call upon Him.

A praying Christian is one who has found the answer—He has learned to pray.

When we pray, IT SHOWS WE RECOGNIZE OUR DILEMMA of being helpless, and we are trusting God to do what we cannot do!