Too Busy Not To Pray

When the task is huge and the responsibilities are overwhelming; when there is too much to do, but you are going to do it anyway, no matter what the consequences, then watch out. For then you are not too busy to pray. You are too busy not to pray.

III

And so, Matthew tells us, as soon as the five thousand had been fed, immediately Jesus made the disciples take Him by boat to the other side, where He could go to pray. Impressed with the threat of something out of control happening to Him as it had happened to John; then exhausted from giving control of the last few hours to the overwhelming needs of the crowd, Jesus now set as an absolute priority His time alone with His God.

Unhurried, calm, focused, He simply dismissed the crowds, went to a place of His own choosing, and gave the Lord His heart. He had been immensely busy, but the time had come when He was too busy not to pray. The only way He could get focus back in His life was to pray.

May I offer a word of testimony? In my daily work, I find that there are any number of things out of control. There are people who do not do what I would hope they would do. There are interruptions of various sorts. There are distractions of all kinds. I find I literally must take time just to be still and know who is God around here ... and, you know what, I always find out it isn’t me! I find I must take time to be still and find out who is God, because the question is always control. Who is going to control my life?

Will it be uncontrollable circumstances to which I will have to react? Those things will happen, but in prayer I may choose to be ready for them.

Or will it be the enormity of the responsibilities I face? The work list doesn’t get any shorter, but when I pray, priorities come into focus. Needs emerge. Some things I had expected to do now appear to be trivial, not worth doing. The issue is who is in control of my life?

Circumstances? The jobs my ego wants me to do? Or may I be in control, in partnership with the living Lord?

I love the fact that the chapter in Matthew ends with Jesus walking on the water. Walking on the water! What a wonderful picture of being totally in control of His life! What a complete image of being able to rise above every circumstance, overcome every obstacle, and quietly, calmly do what seems impossible. I don’t pretend that that is the whole meaning of that story. But I do see the picture of Jesus walking on the water as just another way of saying that a life replenished by prayer and revitalized by a relationship to the living God is capable of far, far more than we have ever imagined.

The issue is what? Control. We think we are too busy to pray. In reality, we are what? Too busy not to pray.

Several weeks ago, as I was planning these two messages on the courage to pray, I wanted to find some Scripture passage that would contain something about praying and something about courage. And so I punched up the key words on the little hand-held computer Bible the deacons gave me a few years ago. Up came Psalm 27:14, which reads, "Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord."