Prayer

by Frank C. Laubach

What if you programmed your cellphone to ring every hour as a reminder to pray? What if your outlook program popped up "Pray" three times a day instead of work related tasks? What if you used time standing in lines to pray for the person in front of you?

Frank Laubach would ask these questions. He would not have forgotten WWII, the atomic bomb, and a world teetering on the verge of annihilation. He would not have laughed mockingly at those who carved out a moment to bow their head. He would not satirically show prayer as a way to catch up on your sleep. He would remind us of the urgency of God's kingdom. He would shout, "PRAYER IS THE MIGHTIEST FORCE IN THE WORLD" and know that no science, no "progress", no philosophy could lead him to believe otherwise.

Flip the script. Instead of harboring pride for how many minutes a day we do pray, why not bow down and ask God for strength - strength to fill the minutes we missed with prayer. Don't pray at all? Fine, start. Laubach cuts through the clutter of limits to prayer. Do we have to have our eyes closed to pray? Or course not. In fact, any limit we place on prayer takes us further from the truth, not closer. Pray with eyes wide open, standing up in a nightclub - as long as you don't deny yourself ANY desire to pray.

Is it easy? Well, you're not doing it because it's easy. You're doing it because it's impossible, and with God, you expect the impossible. Jesus spoke of moving mountains. Let us not cut ourselves short. Let us not rest on our laurels. Laubach says we must earn this connection to God, the same way Jesus did. We earn it by "perfect obedience, the kind Jesus gave His Father every minute and every second."

Let's start with a second, forgive ourselves when we fail, and pick up where we left off - seeking to give ourselves in obedience to God.