Monday, January 23, 2012

Don’t Just Pray; Take Action

With the help of the Holy Spirit who lives within us, carefully guard what has been entrusted to you. -- 2 Timothy 1:14

We Christians are really big on prayer. For good reason, I might add. We pray when we’re happy. We pray when we’re thankful. We pray when we’re sick or in need. We also pray to get out of doing what we really don’t want to do.

Okay. A few folks just stiffened up. They don’t understand what I meant. Or, they hope they don’t. So I’ll be a little plainer: sometimes we Christians use prayer as a way to get out of doing what God has called us to do.

We’re confronted with someone is need -- someone sick, someone hurting, someone who is hungry or unemployed, someone who is lonely. We are filled with kindness and compassion. “I’ll pray for you,“ we tell them. And most of the time we probably do.

But what God is really telling us to do is get up off our knees and help them! It’s not that prayer is a bad thing. Prayer is wonderful and, indeed, we should pray for them. But prayer doesn’t replace action, no matter how persuasively we try to convince ourselves otherwise.

What God is really calling us to do is buy a bag of groceries for the person who is hungry. He is telling us to spend a half hour with someone who is lonely. He is calling us to take a friend to her chemo treatment or give someone a hug. It’s just not what we want to do. We don’t want to take time or spend our money to help someone else. We want to desire to do those things. We just don’t.

Honestly, we really don’t even want to hear about somebody else’s problems. We want to hear that they’re doing fine, that they’re getting by, that all is well. We want to talk about ourselves. We want to brag about our children and grandchildren. We want to keep it all superficial so we don’t have to feel anyone else’s pain.

Are we called to pray for others? Absolutely. But, more importantly, we are called to action. Take another look at your Bible. Jesus didn’t spend a lot of time praying for people. He went off alone and prayed to His Father. He sought His counsel. But when Jesus was among people, He ministered to them.

I realize that Jesus performed many miracles that we can’t begin to do. But that’s no excuse for not doing what we can, where we can. I’m reminded of a friend who was once a young widow with seven children to house, feed and clothe on a nurses’ aide salary. She talks of praying to God for food to feed her children. And someone -- she never knew who or even if it were one person or many -- would leave a bag of groceries by her front door. A need met because someone heeded God’s call and took action.

We are called to love and minister to those whom God puts in our path. God knows what we can do and what we can’t. He’ll never ask us to do more than what we can do with His help. The next time you encounter someone who is in need or hurting, don’t be so quick to dismiss them with a prayer. Ask God what He wants you to do, then take a step out in faith and actually do it.