Prayer and/or Action

I think one of the major frustrations many people have is the prayer but no action scenario. I've heard many people (Christian and non alike) complain about it. Which has got me thinking.

Two biggest characters in the New Testament; Jesus and Paul.

Jesus - "I only do what I see my Father do." From which I shall take a small leap to suggest He prayed a fair amount because He did rather a lot of stuff (you fill in the blanks... ).

Paul - "I pray more than the rest of you." Says the man who wrote two thirds of the new testament and did more to shape Christianities theology than any other human sans God in flesh. And I think he found time to work and make himself useful when he wasn't starting riots.

Now I suspect that both of these characters had a pretty decent balance of prayer and action. In much the same way faith without deeds is useless I imagine that for many people prayer without action is useless too.

Now obviously there are caveats to this. If you are in prison or unable to walk or suffer from various things that make going and doing things problematic / impossible then I wholeheartedly understand that prayer is probably your action. But sadly I suspect the majority of us don't fall into that camp.

If we were to think of prayer as being in relationship with God, then we probably should do a bit more of the second greatest commandment - love your neighbour as ourself. Which I think would solve the prayer versus action debate which so frustrates so many.

Maybe I am being too simplistic but I really don't think the gospel, Jesus, life is supposed to be as complicated as we so often make it.

Shall save the who is my neighbour debate for another time.

Lord teach me to pray. Lord teach me to act.

Silence then a Flurry of Activity

I feel like my life has a theme which goes something like "quiet" then "busy, busy, busy" and repeat ad nauseum.

Having hardly blogged for months, I find myself doing two in two days.

My songwriting feels a bit like that at the moment.

As does house buying.

And work.

Life.

Today I have been working on a new project which I will end up sharing at some point, although right now it's not appropriate.

In the background I have "It's Not Enough" by Dustin Kensrue playing. My beautiful wife amused me no end when she commented upon the song "why so angry Dustin?". Safe to say our musical loves are sometimes poles apart. But I will win her over on this one, cue maniacal laughter.

And so ends today's random blog. Ta ta.

The Assumption

So my wife pulled me up on something this week. She shared some things that had been on her mind for a while and my response was 'let's pray'.

On the face of it a positive and spiritual response. God points to me.

However it wasn't that simple. She then pointed out that the way I was talking made a rather large and wholly wrong assumption that she hadn't prayed about said thing. I realised that sometimes in my trying to be Godly it comes across as suggesting that others are less so and forgotten all about the Almighty and interactions with Him. Minus points to me.

Assuming my wife hasn't prayed is very stupid, she is a deeply spiritual person(whether she would describe it like that is another matter entirely). I think part of the reason I was and am so attracted to her is the way in which Christ is at work in her and how she very simply allows that outworking in her life. I can and do learn a lot from her.

So avoid assumptions, they make an ass out of you and mptions. Instead work on how to build one another up. I think there's a bible verse about that somewhere (God points to me and sarcastic minus points to me too). Sometines relationships need the asking of questions, sometimes they need quietness and open arms. Knowing what to offer and when is a true skill.

And before anyone gets worried, I am not saying that we shouldn't pray, in many respects we need to pray more. However, I am learning not to assume others have or have not prayed.