Prayer Journal

There are many reasons why I pray, such as the fact that I know that God genuinely enjoys the sound of my voice; it puts a smile on his face to hear my voice. One day I’ll write more about that but today I want to talk about the investment of time.

Prayer is one of the few activities that Jesus said his Father would openly reward.

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.  -Matt. 6:6 (NIV)

Life is short and time is precious. Some say that ‘time is money’, but the Bible’s view is that ‘time is destiny‘. King David understood this clearly:

Show me, O LORD, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath. Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro: He bustles about, but only in vain; he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it.  Ps. 39:4-6 (NIV)

That may sound a tad morbid but what David is getting at is that we need a revelation of time. We need to be wise about how we spend our time because once time is gone, it’s gone for good. There is no getting it back.

We also need to understand that ‘time is destiny’: the clear teaching of Scripture is that there is continuity between this age and the next age. In the sermon on the mount (Matt. 5-7), Jesus explicitly mentions several activities that we are to engage in because they have continuity in the next age; we will be rewarded for them in the age of His second coming.

We live in a time in history where there are so many options for how we can spend out time. Never before in all of human history have there been so many options! Never before have there been so many different ways to waste time!

When I go to the prayer room I know that the time I spend there will live on in the next age. It doesn’t matter whether I feel is was super ‘anointed’ or whether I feel it went well or not; the pay is the same! This is extremely important for anybody who wants to persevere in prayer over many years. Our tendency is to evaluate each individual prayer time (or prayer meeting) and determine whether it was ‘effective’ or ‘anointed’ or ‘boring or exciting’. It is as if we want our reward now rather than in the future! (the truth is we don’t have to choose one or the other. There are temporal rewards and awesome answers to prayer in this age for sure, but clearly the main rewards are in the age to come)

When I pray I am engaging in an activity that Jesus will remember forever! On the day when I stand before him and talk to him face to face, he will remember all the times I invested in prayer! There are many things that I spend my time doing that will be forgotten forever, but not the times I spend in prayer! That blows my mind every time I think about it and it is one of the main reasons why I pray!