Word of Encouragement (1/5/2021)

Another reason that many of us have difficulty with prayer is that we don’t really feel the need for it. That’s understandable. Even though we are not of the world, we live in the world and it is easy to get used to the ways of the world. This world can be described in many ways but the one that I’m interested in is the world as the city of man (as opposed to the city of God).

How did the city of man begin? We can trace its beginning to Gen. 4: “Then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch” (vv. 16-17). Enoch is the first city mentioned in the Bible. It was built after Cain was banished from the presence of the LORD after killing his brother, Abel.

This is the key to understanding the fundamental purpose of the city of man: it is to build a life away from the presence of the LORD, to build a utopia apart from God. This is not anything new. We saw the same spirit when Eve listened to the serpent and wanted to become like God without obeying God’s command (Gen. 3:5). The same spirit drove men to “a city and a tower with its top in the heavens” (Gen. 11:4)—to reach heaven on their own without God’s help. The prized virtues of the city of man are autonomy (self-rule) and independence (particularly from God). You can see that nothing is more contrary to the culture of the city of man than prayer, which is manifestly an act of relying on God.

The city of man is all about building a place of safety and happiness without God. To put it bluntly, it is designed to remove any need for prayer. And we live in it among its citizens, who seek life, meaning, and happiness apart from God. As we interact with them and enjoy its technology, which provides for our needs in abundance, satisfies many of our desires, and shields us from the dangers of natural elements and disasters, we too feel a level of security and safety, which dulls our sense of need for God. So, we can go days and weeks and months without praying (other than the prayers before our meals and in our participation in public worship) and don’t really feel the need to pray, except a feeling of guilt because we know we should be praying. But, of course, that little guilt we feel is not enough to break the pattern of prayerless life and compel us to kneel before God. What do we do about that?

What I’m about to say (in the coming days) is not anything we don’t know. But the first thing we must acknowledge is that, for most of us, our problem is not that we don’t know what we should do—who doesn’t know we should pray? The problem is that we don’t want to do it. That is a serious problem, isn’t it? If we don’t know, we can hide behind our ignorance as an excuse. But if we don’t want to do what we know we ought to do, it is willful defiance, showing that our heart is sinful and wicked. If that is the case, we cannot, and must not, think that we are doing OK. We may think that we are in some kind of spiritual neutrality—admittedly, we are not advancing in our Christian walk but we are not backsliding, either. But as many people have pointed out, our Christian life does not take place in a state of vacuum; it is an uphill (or, “upstream”) battle, going against the strong, downward current of the world. Just to maintain our position takes a lot of effort—much more if we want to advance. If we are not making conscious and conscientious effort, we are being swept away.

If we are in a place where we don’t want to do what we should, we are in a bad place. We know that having no appetite is a sure sign of sickness. Having no appetite for God’s Word and fellowship with God in prayer is a sure sign of spiritual sickness. If we have any of COVID-19 symptoms, we would want to get tested and do what is necessary to recover and not infect others. We should have a greater concern for our spiritual sickness because sin is so much more destructive than any physical illness. So, if you have been spiritually complacent, cry out to God for His mercy to awaken your soul! Do it now. Cry out for God’s grace. “’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear / And grace my fears relieved....” May this day be a turning point in your Christian journey—to begin to pray if you haven’t don’t so in a while; to strengthen and double your effort in your prayer life if you have been struggling; to continue on with your prayer life if you have been convicted to pray.