I Was Praying About It More Than I Was Doing Anything About It

There was a box in my garage that I walked past for months.

Nothing interesting in it. Old paperwork, a few cables, instructions for things I probably don't own anymore, and several objects I had apparently decided were too important to throw away but not important enough to identify.

Every once in a while I'd move the box.

Not empty it.

Move it.

That distinction matters because moving something can create a wonderful feeling of progress without requiring you to actually deal with it.

I've discovered I can do something similar with problems.

I move them around.

Think about them.

Talk about them.

Pray about them.

Then occasionally I realize there is something fairly obvious I could do, and I haven't done it.

Prayer can become part of the moving.

I don't love admitting that.

I believe in prayer. My life and ministry are built around encouraging people to pray. I've seen God answer prayer in ways I couldn't have arranged myself, and there are situations where prayer is the only thing I know to do.

But there have also been times when I've asked God to help with something while ignoring the part I could already do.

I Wanted God To Fix A Problem I Kept Feeding

I went through a stretch where I wasn't sleeping particularly well.

Nothing serious. I was just staying up too late.

I'd tell myself I was almost finished with something, then find another thing to do. Some nights I wasn't even doing anything useful. I simply hadn't gone to bed.

The next morning I'd be tired.

Then I'd pray for strength.

That's not wrong.

God does give strength.

But eventually I had the uncomfortable realization that perhaps part of God's provision for my exhaustion was located upstairs in the form of a bed.

I didn't need deliverance.

I needed to go to sleep.

I still laugh at that because I can make very ordinary problems sound extremely spiritual if given the opportunity.

“Father, renew my strength.”

Absolutely.

Also turn the light off, Daniel.

Both can be true.

Nehemiah Prayed And Then Posted Guards

There's a little detail in Nehemiah that I like.

Nehemiah 4:9 says, “Nevertheless we made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch against them day and night.”

They prayed.

And they posted guards.

I've probably read that verse too quickly in the past.

There isn't any embarrassment about taking practical action after praying. Nobody says posting guards showed a lack of faith.

They trusted God enough to pray and had enough sense to watch the wall.

I need both.

There are situations God has to handle because they're completely outside my control.

Then there are situations where I can make a phone call.

Those shouldn't always receive the same response from me.

I Put Off An Appointment Once

I knew I needed to make it.

Kept thinking about making it.

Didn't.

A week went by.

Then another.

I wasn't terrified. I wasn't expecting terrible news. I simply don't particularly enjoy appointments, paperwork, waiting rooms, or rearranging my day around something I'd rather not do.

So I delayed.

I prayed about the issue.

Still didn't make the appointment.

At some point, even I could see the absurdity.

I had asked God for help while repeatedly declining to dial a phone number.

So I called.

The entire process took less than five minutes.

I remember hanging up and being irritated with myself because I'd carried the unfinished task around in my head considerably longer than it took to handle it.

There was no spiritual breakthrough.

I made an appointment.

Sometimes that's the story.

“I’m Praying About It” Can Mean Several Things

Usually it means exactly what it says.

We don't know what to do yet, so we're bringing the matter before God.

Good.

Sometimes it means we're waiting.

Also good.

I've had situations where acting too quickly would've made things worse. Prayer slowed me down enough to see something I hadn't noticed initially.

But I've also said “I'm praying about it” when another sentence might have been more accurate.

“I'm nervous about doing it.”

Or:

“I know this is going to be uncomfortable.”

Or:

“I haven't decided whether I'm willing to pay what this will cost.”

Those aren't the same as waiting on God.

I don't always recognize the difference immediately.

There Was A Conversation I Kept Delaying

I knew somebody was upset with me.

They hadn't said much, but I knew.

You know that feeling when a conversation has changed slightly? Answers get shorter. Something is sitting underneath everything, and both people are behaving as though it isn't there.

I thought about it for several days.

Prayed about it too.

“God, help this situation.”

Fair prayer.

Then one day I caught myself asking God to repair a conversation I was unwilling to have.

I didn't know exactly what the other person was thinking.

That was part of the problem.

I'd already held several imaginary versions of the conversation in my own head and none had gone particularly well.

Real conversations have one advantage over imaginary ones.

The other person actually gets to speak.

I reached out.

It turned out I was right about some things and completely wrong about another.

We didn't resolve everything immediately.

But at least I was finally dealing with the real problem instead of the version I'd constructed privately.

Prayer Is Not A Way To Make God Do My Part

I need to be careful with that sentence because I don't want to push people toward frantic self-reliance.

That's not what I mean.

Some of us already try to control too much.

There are problems we genuinely need to leave with God.

You cannot force another person to change.

You cannot guarantee an outcome.

You cannot make somebody forgive you.

You can't work hard enough to prevent every painful thing from happening to your family.

I know that.

I've exhausted myself trying to control things that weren't mine.

But the opposite problem exists too.

There are responsibilities that are mine.

I can apologize.

I can prepare.

I can save some money.

I can ask for help.

I can stop doing something that is obviously making the problem worse.

I can keep the promise I made.

I can get out of bed and do the work.

God may do something I cannot do.

That doesn't mean He'll always do the part I don't feel like doing.

I Watched Someone Repair A Fence This Summer

Part of it had started leaning.

Not enough to fall over, but enough that you noticed it once you knew where to look.

The man working on it didn't replace the whole fence. He removed a section, dug around one of the posts, fixed what needed fixing and put things back.

Most of the fence was fine.

I stood there for a few minutes watching him work.

There was nothing particularly profound about it.

Later I thought about a problem I'd been treating as much larger than it really was.

I didn't need to solve the next five years.

There was one thing I needed to do that week.

I could do that.

I think sometimes I become inactive because I'm trying to mentally complete the entire future before beginning the first part.

Prayer has helped me with that, but not by showing me the whole future.

More often I get enough light for the next decision.

I still want the rest.

I’ve Asked God To Open Doors While Standing Still

There are opportunities I've prayed for and then done almost nothing to prepare for them.

That's another uncomfortable one.

“God, open a door.”

Okay.

What happens if He does?

Am I ready?

Have I learned what I need to learn?

Have I done the work already available to me?

I've wanted opportunities before I was willing to become the person who could handle them.

That isn't always the case. Sometimes we're ready and the opportunity simply hasn't come.

But I have to at least ask the question.

There are things I've prayed for that would've been difficult to manage if God had handed them to me immediately.

At the time I would've disagreed with that sentence.

Then There Are Days When Prayer Really Is The Action

I don't want to lose this.

There have been situations where I couldn't do anything.

Someone I loved was far away.

A decision belonged to another person.

A medical situation was in the hands of doctors.

An answer hadn't arrived.

A door was closed and I didn't have the key.

Those are hard places for me.

I want an assignment.

Tell me who to call.

Give me something to fix.

Sometimes there isn't anything.

Then prayer isn't avoiding action.

Prayer is what I can do.

I can bring the person before God.

I can ask for His intervention.

I can trust Him with the part of the story I cannot reach.

Learning when to move and when to stay out of the way has probably caused me more trouble than either one individually.

I still get it wrong.

I Finally Emptied The Box

Not because of some spiritual awakening.

I needed space.

I pulled everything out on the garage floor and discovered that most of what I'd been preserving was useless.

Old receipts.

A charger for something unknown.

A manual dated years earlier.

Several screws.

Why were there loose screws in a box of paperwork?

No idea.

Twenty minutes later most of it was gone.

The box had occupied physical space for months and mental space every time I looked at it.

Twenty minutes.

I've had a few other things like that lately.

Not boxes.

Tasks.

Conversations.

Decisions.

Things I've prayed about enough that eventually the prayer has become fairly simple:

“Father, if this is mine to do, help me quit avoiding it.”

I prayed something like that this week.

Unfortunately, something came to mind almost immediately.

I was hoping for a longer waiting period.

There wasn't one.

So I wrote it down.

I still haven't done it yet.

It's on tomorrow's list.

And if it's still on the list next week, I probably won't be able to blame that on needing more prayer.

Daily Effective Prayers Of The Week