Prayer – It’s not a seasonal thing
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for the Lord’s people.
~Ephesians 6:18
Have you ever treated prayer as a seasonal thing? You know it should be a daily thing, but it gets pushed to the side, or it is treated as a routine thing like brushing your teeth only to be checked off the “to do” list so you can move to the next thing on your schedule. Prayer should not be considered an inconvenience, especially during good times. After all, other important relationships are not treated that way, and a relationship with Christ should be our most precious.
When we pray only during the bad times, we are shutting ourselves off from God’s blessings. It also tells God we only want to talk when we are desperate. Don’t we share with friends when good things happen? Of course, we do, so why not give God the same respect we give our friends. During good times, praise Him for all your blessings.
The 9/11 event changed all Americans. Months after the attack, I often heard this question: What was your prayer life like on September 10, September 11, and then on September 12? When I think about the pandemic, the same question could be asked: What was your prayer life like before the pandemic, during the worst days, and currently? Hopefully, your prayer life is as strong today as it was on September 11 and during the worse months of the pandemic when we had no idea what the future would hold.
There are so many blessings to being on staff at Hillspring Church. Two of my favorites are our diversity in backgrounds and our range of ages. Yes, I am the group's elder, but the rest of the staff tries hard to keep me young. We are an array of Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials. We don't always get each other's jokes or music preference, but we certainly share a love for each other and desire an authentic relationship with Christ. During the early days of the pandemic, with so much unknown about what the future would hold for Hillspring and all churches, the diversities of our staff did not matter at all. We were just a group of individuals who believed in praying for each other even when our only connection was Zoom.
Thankfully, we don’t need Zoom to connect with Jesus. We have an open invitation for a relationship with Him. The heart of Jesus is sacred, and the lessons and examples it provides to us are paramount in our prayer life and daily mission to follow in His footsteps. What if, for one day and night, your heart was replaced by the heart of Christ? This, of course, would include prayer. Isn't it interesting that out of all the disciples, only one of them asked Jesus to teach them to pray? It seems we are in a similar situation today regarding prayer. We talk about prayer, study prayer, and say our prayers, but how many of us sincerely ask God to teach us to pray from the heart and understand it is not a monologue where we give Christ a list of things we want Him to accomplish, but a dialogue where listening is involved.
During the worst days of the pandemic, when my kids would call, I feared answering, not knowing what hurt or disappointment they would share with me. Thankfully, it was good news most of the time, and they were only calling to say how much they missed me. Those calls were such a blessing. Of course, God already knows what is happening in our lives, but it dawned on me that is how He feels when we bring praises to Him. He is available to us in hard times but hearing from us in good times gives Him joy. God is not an absent father. What better time to seek Him than when we can come to Him in pure thankfulness for the good things He is doing in our lives.
The lyrics from one of my favorite worship songs says it all:
I love your voice
You have led me through the fire in the darkest night
You are close like no other
I’ve known you as a father
I’ve known you as a friend
I have lived in the goodness of God
Blessings,
Peggy Zumhofe
Executive Pastor
