Prayer=Work

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James 5:15–17 (NKJV) And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months.

What it is speaking to me:

Elijah didn't just pray once. He prayed earnestly the kind of prayer that bends the knees and empties the lungs. It is not the casual kind. And the result? Well you know the story (if you don't, it starts in 1 Kings 17...)

James doesn't characterize Elijah as a prophet of extraordinary constitution, a spiritual giant too far above us to imitate. He says Elijah was like us. Same doubts, same weariness, same temptation to look at a hard thing and wonder if God is actually listening...sound familiar?

We all have those hard things: The work or house project that keeps stalling. Those relationships that seems beyond repair. The calling you feel that looks more like fantasy than anything nearing reality. We look at these looming mountains and begin scaling the vision back, settling for what feels achievable, quietly shelving what we once believed God put in front of us. I hope you can't identify with this story. But if you can, read on.

Notice what James doesn't say. He doesn't say the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man occasionally avails. He says it avails much. That's not a hedged statement. That's a promise with some weight behind it.

I don't think our problem is that we've stopped believing in prayer. I think the problem might be that we can treat prayer like a brief formality before the real work begins...the work we do. Our power, our strength. So we pray a thirty-second invocation before we swing the hammer or send the email. We spend hours planning, but only minutes praying. And wonder of wonders, we feel like we're carrying the whole thing ourselves. Because maybe we are.

Elijah was like us, but are we like Elijah? What would happen if our knees put in the same hours as our hands?

What is it saying to you?

How much do you pray before you start a hard work? Start a conversation? Have a planning meeting?

What are we going to do about it?

Identify a large or hard task and commit to spend as much time praying about it as you spend working on it.