by Pastor Daniel
 
Introduction
“Prayer is the easiest thing to do, and yet we all struggle with it.”  This is what I mentioned in one of my sermons.  It is so true.  We have plenty of “valid” reasons for that. 
•          I simply don’t have the time.
•          I don’t know what to say.
•          What can I possibly pray about?
•          My mind is simply too distracted.
 
The reasons seem valid.  How do we deal with them? 
 
Being a pastor and a Christian all these years, I must admit that prayer is also a struggle until I come to realize that nothing matters unless God is in it.
 
The Urgency
We will not get ourselves in a praying mode if God is not as important as we declare it to be.  As in the case of Mary and Martha that we are all familiar with, it was a busy time.  That is the reason why Martha was complaining against Mary who was not helping her.  However, what Mary captured was the urgency to be with her master and listening to Him.
 
David was a busy king for Israel.  He has to fight battles, lead the nation, govern the affairs of the nation and yet he could say that he would rather be in the house of the Lord than in the courts of the palace.
 
Jesus was no less busier than anyone of us.  Jesus was no less sufficient than any of us.  Jesus was no less capable than any of us.  If there is a true “self-made man”, it has to be Jesus.  Yet, he is found to “come out of his busyness” to pray alone to the Father.  My question was why?  Is it not enough that he was already leading a life of consciousness of God all the time?  Does that not suffice that I live a daily life of consciousness of God?  Do I also really need to “come away to pray”?
 
All these boil down to whether we feel there is an urgency and importance to do so.
 
 
Uncertainty
If there is one thing to note on the prayer life of Jesus, it is this, “I only do what I see my Father doing.”  With the same note, one of his last earthly prayer was, “Not my will but yours be done.”
 
What about us?  To know and to do the will of God must be utmost in our heart and mind. 
 
Being human, all the more there should be a full dependence on God because He is certain of all things but we are not.  Of late, the Lord seems to be teaching me this fact.  There is so much we can plan.  There is so much we desire to do.  Yet all this will fall flat if we do not seek the will of God.
 
James 4:13-15,  “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow, we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit” -yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.  What is your life?  For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.  Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this and that.”
 
We do live a life filled with much uncertainty.  We do not know what tomorrow holds.  I saw that in my last planning of my life.  Seemingly everything appeared to fall flat and what was left on my table were faith and trust in God.  This is where I truly learnt the practice of prayer - of being still and know that He is God.  He is the only thing that is certain.
 
Our uncertainty must bring our knees before our King of kings.  Personally, I am now realizing more and more how I need to depend on God and pray.  In the ministry, greater is the drive for me to come before God.
 
Since the beginning of the year, as it was last year, the Lord has been impressing in my heart the need to come before him.  And since this year, I find myself waking up in the early hours of the morning, coming before God, worshipping Him and bringing my petitions to Him.
 
Unbearable
The next thought reveals our need for prayer and for God.  Our burdens sometimes seem unbearable.  There is nothing we could do and there is no one who could shoulder them for us.  Those were the times we do not even know how and what to say in our prayers.  Thus we come to God and ask the Holy Spirit to help us in our prayers.
 
Romans 8:26, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.  And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
 
This is where the graciousness of God is being revealed.  His Spirit that is given to us helps us in our prayers.  We only need to come to Him.  During such times of crises, when things become unbearable, we bare it at the feet of Jesus.
 
Conclusion
As we face another challenging year in our lives - be it times of joy and times of woe, times of blessings or times of buffeting, let us not cease to come to God.  As the church faces a new phase in her life, as we work towards knowing and fulfilling the will of God, we must always remember that our greatest resource is PRAYER.  May FCC become a community who never cease to pray.