"[Jesus] Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray. "
Luke 5:16
TOO BUSY TO PRAY
Read It: Matthew 26:36-41; Mark 1:35-39 An old gospel song says, "If you're too busy to pray, brother, you're too busy." Most Christians would say amen to that, I think, because we know how important prayer is. Unfortunately, a lot of our prayers never get spoken at all, or we pray in such a way as to try and manipulate God rather than seek and obey His will and His agenda for us. Therefore, we don't see prayer's power or results in our lives. But if our understanding of Scripture is correct, prayer is foundational both to the individual Christian life and to the life and ministry of the church. You know what a foundation does. It anchors the whole building, ing, gives it something solid to sit on. All else builds on the foundation. It's no wonder, then, that Satan works overtime to keep us off our knees, keeping us busy, distracted, so we lose our regular in-depth communication munication with the Father. But there was one Person whom Satan could not get anywhere with when it came to trying to disrupt His prayer life. You already know from today's reading that this Person was Jesus Christ. The Savior is our perfect model for a life of prayer. He began and ended His public ministry in prayer. We see Him on one of the busiest days of His life in Mark 1, getting up way before daylight to pray. Luke said He did this often. It was Jesus' habit to pray. In the Garden of Gethsemane, of course, He prayed with an agony of prayer we will never know.
No wonder the disciples looked at Jesus' prayer life and asked Him to teach them to pray. Ask Peter what He thought of Jesus' prayer life, and he will tell you it kept him from wiping out completely when he denied Jesus (see Luke 22:31-32). And lest you say, "Well, that's Peter for you," let me remind you that the only reason we don't crash and burn is because Jesus is praying for us today (John 17:20; Hebrews 7:25). The application is pretty obvious. If Jesus needed to pray, what does that say about you and me? Think About It If you're waiting for the Spirit to move you to pray, you're missing something, because He already has moved you to pray-through through the instruction and example of the Word.
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