Devotion 3: Earnest Prayer
"As we pray most earnestly night and day." 1 Thessalonians 3:10
How should I pray? That’s the question, right? We are told as Christians that prayer is an essential discipline; however, for many of us, this discipline is a short thought at dinnertime, asking the Lord to bless our greasy pizza to the nourishment of our bodies, or perhaps a quick prayer for our family before going to sleep. Now, I don’t bring up these two examples flippantly (I have prayed both of those prayers before), but I bring them up to highlight the struggle many of us face.
The struggle to pray ails both the seasoned believer and those new to the faith. When Paul says, “As we pray most earnestly,”right off the bat, we see what prayer is meant to be… earnest. We are meant to have a sincere and serious conviction about our prayer life. So often, prayer becomes a casual, ritualistic thing Christians do at dinner or bedtime, and our times of prayer become void of substance, commitment, and intentionality.
Think of things in your life you are committed to or work at. What are you sincere about or have a serious conviction for? It might be your marriage, your job, or your family. Does the amount of work and dedication you pour into those areas match up to how you pray?
Paul didn’t just say pray; he gave us the description of how we should pray, and how often, “night and day.” To be serious and convicted about prayer means that you are driven to go to God, not just driven in the moments of trials but driven in the triumphs and celebrations of God’s blessings. When life happens, as it inevitably will, you go to God.
If this is how we are meant to pray, you might be asking, "How do I implement this into my life?" The simple answer is: start praying. Begin disciplining yourself, and grow the prayer muscle memory. You might feel inadequate when praying to God or struggle to take prayer seriously, bring that before the Lord, too. Do not just sit on the sidelines of life because you think that you are not good at something or do not yet know how to effectively put a discipline into practice. God isn’t focused on the eloquence of our words but on the intensity of our hearts.