We often hear talk of restoring the altar of prayer both in the church and in the home and fail to grasp the full implications of what that means regarding the spiritual condition of those who, at least to their credit, acknowledge that it needs restoration. In order for something to be restored, it must have been allowed to linger untended and unattended for a prolonged period of time.
If an altar requires restoration, the underlying implication
is that it remained unvisited and unused for long enough, wherein it fell into
decrepitude and was left to ruin. Although the reasons why this occurred may
differ from person to person, the effect it has on spiritual well-being is
uniform.
The less time we spend in the presence of God, the less time
we spend in prayer, the more vulnerable we become to the enemy’s attacks, his
plans and schemes, the deceptive whispers of his henchmen, and his ability to
do us harm.
Prayer was never an option for the children of God. It is a
command and a mandate. There are two things Jesus assumed His followers would
do consistently: prayer being one and fasting the other. Whenever these two
topics were discussed, they were framed as when you fast and when you pray,
rather than if you fast and pray. Jesus took it as a given that those who
followed after Him would pray, not occasionally or when the mood took them, but
consistently and continually.
These two aspects of the Christian walk are so essential for
a healthy spiritual man that nowhere in the Word are we given the option to opt-out
or replace them with something else. Prayer is fundamental and essential. So
much so that Jesus Himself often went away to pray, He who was perfect and
without sin, having a direct line of communication with the Father.
If Jesus needed to pray, why do we assume we don’t? Why is
the general assumption that we can replace prayer with some other thing and
expect the same results we would have had had we committed to spending time in
God’s presence and pouring our hearts out to Him?
No man is born a prayer warrior. Prayer warriors are forged.
Prayer is a learned skill and something that must be nurtured consistently in
order to grow and expand. In one sense, the beauty of it is that how much time
we spend in prayer is dependent on the individual and their determination,
willingness, and effort they put forth rather than some external factor we must
rely upon.
When it comes to spiritual gifts, God chooses what, who, when,
and where. When it comes to prayer, we decide how much time to devote to it. We
all start out in the same position. No one wakes up one morning and prays for
five hours straight. We all start out small. We all start out with those
hesitant five minutes of intreating God, praising Him, thanking Him, and
beseeching Him.
Those five minutes soon turn into ten, we become less
hesitant, we become comfortable with the idea of communing with God, and once
we begin to see the benefits of spending time in His presence, the desire of
our hearts becomes to do it more often, for longer stretches of time, finding
things to eliminate in our day to day lives for the sake of being alone with
Him.
Those who insist they can’t make time for God have not
prioritized Him to the point that they are willing to forfeit other things in
lieu of spending time with Him. We all have the same twenty-four hours afforded
to us, yet somehow, people with more children, more responsibilities, two jobs,
and a cat that won’t stop throwing up in every corner of the house find the
time to be in His presence all the same.
We can make excuses, or we can make adjustments. It all
depends on how much we want something and what we are willing to sacrifice in
order to get it. If that sounds harsh, it wasn’t intentional. If you took it as
a personal affront, it says more about you than it does about anything else.
We’re quick to find excuses whenever we feel as though we’re
being called out for something we failed to do, not because of time constraints
or because we were physically incapable, but because we either didn’t feel like
it or chose to spend our time doing something other than what we were supposed
to do.
The ongoing battle in the Boldea household is between my wife
and my daughters and their unwillingness to keep their room clean. Every few
days, there’s bound to be a question and answer session between the three of
them as to why their room looks like the remains of a homeless encampment once
the residents have been moved out than it does the room of a ten, and
seven-year-old.
Although the excuses range from banal to fanciful, in the
end, that’s all they are, and while they miraculously find the time to draw, read,
play in the yard, and most recently collect earthworms for reasons I have yet
to deduce, the cleaning of their room never makes the list.
While the importance of keeping a spotless room is debatable,
since in my youth, I too was known to give my clothes the sniff test to see if
they were viable for another day of wear, the importance and necessity of
prayer cannot be overstated or overemphasized. The more you pray, the more you
grow, and failure to have a consistent prayer life is not only detrimental to
one’s spiritual well-being, it is outright disobedience to the will and Word of
God.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Rejoice always, pray without
ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus
for you.”
Perhaps it comes through in more modern translations, but
having read this passage numerous times, I have yet to see the will of God in
Christ for us as being having fruitless debates or endless arguments on the
interwebs. Rather, we are to rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and, in
everything, give thanks. If we substitute those things for anything else, no
matter how worthwhile we might deem them to be, we’re still walking in
disobedience.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Posted on 12 April 2025 | 11:33 am
Page processed in 0.022 seconds.