Prayer and Flossing

As I was preparing to preach a message on prayer, I came across this survey while doing a little bit of research. It was a very interesting study to me, especially because they freely admitted, "Survey respondents are well known to overstate behaviors they believe are virtuous, like praying and flossing, and understate those, such as drinking, they feel might open them up to criticism." In other words, this survey really doesn't tell us much of anything - except that we want to look virtuous!

Flossing and prayer are intriguing partners to me. They're both things that we (at least most of us) would agree are important practices. Each of them can be done in a relatively short amount of time and each have proven to have positive impacts on life. (I'm not going to go looking for a study on the benefits of prayer, although I have seen them before. I can speak from experience and that's good enough for me.) However, I really question how much time and effort people put into either of these activities. I will readily admit that I almost never floss. Why not? I don't know ... I guess it's just not that important to me.

This blog post, however, is not about flossing. It's about prayer. And recently the Lord has been showing me a great deal about prayer and what my real thoughts about it have been. Sure, I would agree that it's important, but it's become clear that there has been wide gap between my orthodoxy and my orthopraxy. I would say that prayer mattered, but then I'd spend very little time daily in prayer. And while I do agree that prayer can be effective in short spurts (like flossing), I think it needs to be a daily discipline.

Jesus Himself practiced such a life of prayer and solitude with God, as Mark tells us in the very first chapter of his gospel: "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed." (Mark 1:35) The BSU has been participating in 24/7 prayer this past week, and it's been a very challenging time for me to finally establish prayer as a true focus of my life. For far too long my Christian life has been about what I can do for God, rather than what God can do through me. The difference may seem subtle, but it is a radically different state of mind.

So far it's been an absolute amazing time for me with the Lord. It is literally transforming my life. It has brought a greater focus and clarity to each day. I've been asking God to weave divine appointments into my day - and He has! I've long believed that you can best minister to others out of the overflow of your own relationship with God and others have often impressed this truth upon me. It's absolutely true, and it's been a lot of fun watching God move and inspire me to pour into the lives of others. Praise be to God!

My prayer now is that this can become an integral part of my day for the rest of my life and not simply be a few good weeks. May I encourage you to begin each day with the Lord, drawing near to Him, seeking His will for your day, asking Him to help you to be His messenger today. Just don't ask if I've flossed today.