A Praying People

It is Monday morning, 3rd January, the year 2022, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

“Pray without ceasing.”

1 Thessalonians 5:17

For this year, and indeed for every year, this must become part of our very lives. Like we put on our clothes every morning when we get up, we should be praying. We have to become a praying people.

What was Jesus doing at the most critical time in His life when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane? He was praying, not running, not making a plan but praying. Prayer was the focal part of Jesus’s life and remains so, to this day. In fact, He is interceding, in Heaven, right now on our behalf.

If we look at Luke 22:40, Jesus says:

“Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”

Remember when the five thousand people had nothing to eat and the disciples came to the Lord and said, “What must we do?” The Lord prayed over two small fish and five barley loaves of bread and the Lord fed five thousand men, and that is not even numbering the women and the children that were there. Mathew 14:17

I looked, up the Oxford Dictionary, to find out the definition of the word prayer and this is what it says: “A solemn request for help or expression of thanks, addressed to God.”

That is what prayer is. I remember praying, as a brand-new Christian, I prayed because I was in a crisis situation. There was a fire on our farm. There was a huge wind blowing and the fire was about to jump into the neighbour’s pine plantation. It would have meant absolute disaster and destruction, for me and my young family. The wind was blowing furiously, my neighbours were trying to help me stop the fire from jumping. Eventually, they had to go because they had to pay their staff, it was the end of the month.

I got on my knees, in front of everybody, in the dust and I prayed because I didn’t know what else to do. I can tell you now, God is my witness, the wind from the north dropped. A cool wind came up from the south and gentle rain fell on that fire and put the fire out.

This year let us become a praying people. Remember the old adage: “When men work, they work, but when men pray, God works.”

God bless you and have a wonderful day.
Goodbye.