The Hardest Work You Know

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)

Prayer is work. Am I right? I always get bothered when people say such clichés as: “Prayer is like breathing.” You know, I have never had to set aside time to breathe. I also have never had my mind wander and forget to breathe while trying to breathe. I’ve never got up from breathing and said, “I don’t really feel like I’ve had a breath at all today.” No, prayer is work. Our passage is as they say “the proof in the pudding.”

Let me ask you this – have you ever had to reward your child for breathing? Have you ever convinced them of the benefits of breathing? Of course not! Yet our heavenly Father makes some of the most precious promises in Scripture in relation to prayer. Why? Because He knows our struggle. Before we come to Christ, prayer is a Hail Mary pass when we’ve already tried everything else. But when we do come to Christ, when we are blessed with this wonderful privilege and sacred duty, even our most feeble prayers are mixed with doubt. “Who am I? Will God hear me? Can God answer this?” If a salesman cannot sale a product he doubts, a Christian cannot pray aright with a doubting heart.

What promise could strengthen our faith, could enflame our affections more than these words? Ask, seek, knock – God makes a promise of magnificent proportions of which we cannot fathom the limitless supply. God makes a promise of which He would rather us overuse than neglect. Our prayers do not stretch God’s faithfulness; God’s promise stretches our faith.

Prayer is work, and the work of the kingdom expands around Raymond and far beyond through the engine of prayer. When you see work needing to be done, will you do the hard work of prayer? Will you take God at His Word?