As usual, when I am writing about Christian topics or things that I feel will upset the “delicate” stand of some Christians, I have to issue a disclaimer.
I am a Christian, I believe in the one true Living God and I try to live by the doctrines outlined in the Bible and the teachings of Christ.
Just Wednesday morning, I was praying to God about something — I was asking God to heal me as I had been feeling ill for the past few months.
And like most Christians, I took it up in prayer — asking God for divine healing, which I have complete faith He has given me.
But in the midst of the prayer, I felt the urge to stop praying, at least about the particular issue of my health.
It was as though the Holy Spirit had dropped it in my conscience that I need to stop praying.
The feeling was so strong and I immediately stop praying right in the middle of a sentence.
I realised I didn’t have to pray because I had the power to carry my ailing self to a hospital and get a proper diagnosis on what was wrong with me.
This is not to say that it is beyond the power of the Lord to heal me from any sickness instantly, but this is to highlight that the Holy Spirit was probably asking me “Why are you asking Me? You need to get yourself to a hospital!”.
And this made me wonder; how many times have the requests we make of God being in our own reach?
For some of our prayer requests, we already possess the power to answer.
Yet we ask God to do what we can do ourselves. And then we wonder why God doesn’t respond. Maybe it’s because God won’t do for us what we can do for ourselves.
From the way I see it, God is especially honored when He does for us what is not within human possibility. The miracle that God would offer you would make people wonder and thus His full glory can then be appreciated. God isn’t honored by prayers that are within the realm of human possibility.
There are some things we don’t need to pray about.
You don’t need to pray about things are within your power to change.
Take for instance if you have a phone to spare, and a friend comes to you with a genuine need for a phone and asks that you remember him in your prayers.
Now, it would be genuine for you to offer a prayer on his behalf, but it is easier to just give him the phone you have to spare.
Prayer has currently become a form of procrastination for some Christians. It’s time to stop praying and start acting.
Don’t sit at home all the time and be praying for a job without sending out some applications and acquiring the needed skills for THAT job.
Quit praying that the friend you hurt will magically forgive you and place a call to say sorry to her.
Don’t see homeless and hungry people by the street and just let out silent prayer for them; give alms.
When Accra first flooded about 2 years ago, social media was flooded with #PrayForAccra posts, and the atheist Ghanaian blogger, Chris Vincent wrote a post on how “stupid” we are.
To some extent, I have to agree with him; we need to be clearing up our gutters rather than just praying against flooding in Accra.
True to the word, there are some parts of the Word of God that are difficult to understand with our human minds.
But most often, the things we face as humans are not centered around the things we don’t understand, but rather in the things we do understand, the things we could not possibly misunderstand.
Every Christian is called to pray and dedicate everything to God in prayer, as we should; but there are times when praying about what we can change is just plain negligence, laziness or even disobedience.
We can’t just pray like it depends on God; we also must work like it depends on us.
The title of the book of Acts says it all, doesn’t it? It’s not the book of Ideas or Words. It’s the book of Acts. And if we said less and did more, I believe we would have the same kind of impact the first-century church had.
When everything is said and done, God won’t say, “Well said, good and faithful servant.” He won’t say, “Well thought,” “well planned,” or even “well prayed.”
There is only one commendation He will give: “Well done, good and faithful servant.” — Matthew 25:21