Daily Lesson for August 1, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Acts chapter 1 verse 14:

“All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.”

The early church began as a great movement of prayer. Jesus taught his disciples the need for prayer. He also taught them how to pray. He taught them to believe in the power and the glory of God and to ask for daily bread. He taught them to ask for forgiveness even as they forgave others. He taught them to pray for the kingdom to come on earth even as it is in heaven. 

So when Jesus departed and they knew not what to do next, they did the only thing they could do: they prayed.

Yesterday the prayer ministry at our church set aside a day for prayer at our camp on Eagle Mountain Lake. Our organist Al Travis, who is well known for the discipline and depth of his prayer life, gave a brief talk between times of guided prayer. 

Al spoke about how prayer has sustained and grown him over the years. He shared a quote from Richard Rohr which made me think of Martha and Mary, “Prayer is not one of 10,000 things. It is the one necessary thing.”

In all our busyness and activism and good works and planning and planning and more planning, we cannot neglect the one necessary thing. This thing called life is a struggle and the struggle is real.  The powers set against us are real. They are formidable. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms,” (Ephesians 6:12). This means we are up against a mighty mountain. We can’t move it on our own strength. We can only move it by God’s strength. As Jesus said, “This kind can only come out through prayer,” (Mark 9:29).

We can’t be too busy to pray. For prayer is the one necessary thing. It is the “sine qua non” — “the without which there is not”.

The disciples devoted themselves to prayer right there in the beginning of the book of Acts. Without prayer there would have been no Acts. Sure, there would have been a little huddling and perhaps a little sharing. But there would have been no great movement of communal transformation, no great comprehension of God’s love for all — even enemies, and no great coming of the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. It would have been about a year’s worth of do-goodism before everybody went back to fishing for fish. 

Prayer sustained the early church. It strengthened and empowered the church. It was the one necessary thing. And they didn’t start without it. 

Neither can we.