Not for Prayer

This past last week marked the National week of Prayer

One of my friend's six year old son walked up to her room in the morning claiming he had had a very bad dream.She being a woman of prayer wanted to know what the nightmare was about so as to tackle the demons! Her son however replied that he dreamt his father became his teacher.She managed to give appropriate words of wisdom without laughing but you would certainly agree that that was not a case for prayer.

Just as the young child's request sounded funny,there are some times that we actually pray about something when we ought to be doing something about it.There are somethings prayer will not do and it will be irresponsible for us to expect it to.

One of the first things is that prayer will not offer an apology to people.It is alright to offer an apology to God in prayer but it is foolish to think that the place of prayer is where apology to our
fellow o men should be offered.Pride usually hinders us from apologizing wholeheartedly.It is an act of greatness to apologize genuinely without apportioning blame to others.

Another thing prayer will not do is it will not say hello to others.It is amazing how we can be praying for others and never even acknowledge them with a word of greeting for various reasons ranging from being in the spirit or too spiritual to be bothered about such carnal things in quote.Although Apostle Paul was a busy minister and prayed a lot in his Epistles, he always seemed to have time to extend greetings to others  and this leaves us in no doubt that when he was with them physically, he greeted them.Sometimes we could just be hiding under a cloak of maliciousness by saying we are praying about somebody/something and refuse to associate with them .People may never know how much we labor for them in prayer but might be able to appreciate our God better if his children are nice enough to just say hello.

Thirdly,prayer will not stop the process.Most things in life take time and the spectacular is usually the norm.Not matter how much we pray,a pregnancy will still take nine months.Being in a haste is not a sign of spiritual maturity or of our trust in God(Isaiah 28:16).God will not shortchange the process just because we prayed and the Bible rightly states that it is the steps of a good man that are ordered by the Lord (Psalms 37:23).Bishop T.D. Jakes in support  has rightly said "God does not order elevators".

It is true that we have been told to pray about everything but there are some things that prayer will not do.It may be that in addition to our prayer, we need to add an apology, be more friendly and actually say hello to someone.Prayer will not overthrow the process.So before we start to pray about anything,let us be sure to ask ourselves sincerely if our request   is for prayer alone,prayer and deeds  or not for prayer.

Yours in Him,
Grace Tom-Lawyer