When you come to
the end of your days which of these three (3) statements will best characterize
your desire:
1. I wish I had invested more time in Planning.
2. I wish I had invested more time in Preparing Sermons.
3. I wish I had invested more time in Prayer.
Option #3 is almost always the response I receive from Pastors when asked to respond to this issue.
Answering the
question is the easy part. Now let’s dig deeper. Why is that so?
Unrelenting
self-reliance. Sin deceives us. It tells us with persistent wooing that we are
in control, that we can do ‘whatever we set our mind to do’. Really!
We can Plan. We will
invest hours, days planning, plotting and pondering all that ‘we will do’.
James provides copious wisdom in a few words - Come now, you who say,
"Today or tomorrow we will go into 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 or that." As it is, you
boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil (James 4:13-16).
We can Preach. We
will invest hours, days, months preparing sermons. Indeed, that we should. Time
invested in careful exegesis and the development of the logic and content of
the text is time well invested. Delivering this carefully crafted material to
God’s people is honoring His call upon our life. Close, but no cigar!
We can Pray. The
problem is, we don’t. Why? Because in our heart of hearts we still do not fully
comprehend what Jesus meant when He said - - “without me you can do nothing.”
One significant dimension of sin is self-reliance. Pastors are generally “Type
A” personalities. We will conquer the world. Just get out of our way and be
amazed at what we can do. Oh how foolish. Oh how arrogant. Oh how tragic.
Planning and
Preaching are vital. Our God is honored when we express diligence in both of
these activities. He is not honored by mediocrity. We should always deliver
excellence. He delights even more when we come in humble adoring joy, seeking
His grace and provision through quiet pensive prayer. Listening more than
speaking. Praying through the Scripture. Learning in Prayer what God taught
those who have gone before us and recorded their journey for our benefit (1Cor.
10; Hebrews 11).
So imagine yourself
on the threshold of eternity, ready to step from this life to the next. What
will you wish you had done more of? I thought so.
The link takes the
reader to a very helpful article on the importance of prayer if we are to find
optimal effectiveness in ministry.
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