Prayerlessness

Freedom, liberty, and victory — we all want these to characterize our lives. Yet, so often they seem elusive.

Instead we worry, fret and stew. As God’s children we have 24/7 access to our Father. Why do we so rarely take advantage of that?

Perhaps we think that we can handle the little stuff but we will go to God for the big stuff. Looking at that statement we realize the foolishness of it, but truth be told, that is how most of us operate. As soon as we think, “I can handle…anything” we have exposed an independent attitude that characterizes many believers.

I was first struck by this thought while working through Beth Moore’s “Breaking Free” study. She lists prayerlessness as one of the obstacles to our freedom, liberty, and victory.

I was reminded of that again recently when I was reading the March 3rd devotional in “New Morning Mercies” by Paul David Tripp. Here are some excerpts from that day: “Prayer abandons independence. Prayer forsakes any thought that you can make it on your own. Prayer affirms dependency… We need to be met by God’s grace if, in true humility, we are ever going to be able to abandon our self-reliance and pray for grace…since prayer is fundamentally counterintuitive, we need grace to rescue us from our self-oriented religious meanderings so that, with humble hearts, we may acknowledge God as the Redeemer-King and cast ourselves on his gracious care. Prayer always forsakes the kingdom of self for the kingdom of God.”

I needed that reminder today. Perhaps you did too.

Written by Diane Hunt: Diane Hunt serves on the board of America’s Keswick and is the Executive Director & CEO of Changed Choices, a Christian non-profit in North Carolina. She is also a biblical counselor and women’s event speaker. For more information about having Diane speak at your next event please contact her at dhunt@americaskeswick.org.