PROGRESS WITHOUT PRAYER IS PRESSURE

Rev. Arnel Tan

“Then we can spend our time in prayer and preaching and teaching the word of God”
Acts 6:4 NLT

The problem of the early church was how to beat the pressure of progress. One thing hard with success is it can be fatal to the spiritual life of an individual or church. Progress is something wonderful to experience and admittedly this has been the driving goal of our hard works. While progress is a positive thing it also has its own side effects. The truth is the person or any organization that experiences progress or success without spiritual reserves will soon wake up facing unbelievable pressure.

The Apostles and the members of the early church showed remarkably deep spiritual maturity when they adamantly stood for prayer as the priority over projects. The prayer lives of the apostles and the prayer life of the church resulted in spiritual sensitivity that enabled them to detect the trap of progress without prayer . . . a dilemma many of us face today. Aside from our depleted prayer lives, we also have to deal with our inability to discern what God desires. I want to clarify that to be progressive is not bad. The issue here is the forgetfulness of many to put prayer above progress.

When prayer has priority over progress, the pressure of progress is controlled. In prayer, we see the difference between our good intentions and God’s approval. The desire to know God is intensified compared to just being busy doing Christian activities. In prayer, pressure is off because we are focused on the one thing that God wants us to do. In prayer, we learn to rest and not join the rat race for further success. In prayer, the Lord develops within us the spiritual sensitivity to detect when something is wrong even when the outside signs say otherwise.

Progress becomes an unbelievable and unending pressure because prayer has taken the back seat. Less prayer leads to prayerlessness. Here, the work that God has started is now perfected by human effort. No wonder Paul used the word “foolish” to rebuke the Galatians regarding their human effort in doing God’s work. The more progress we see, the more prayers we should say. It is impossible to handle the blessings of abundance when we are not in tune with the Giver of these gifts. Warnings have been issued all throughout the Bible . . . from the books of Deuteronomy to the Epistles. We have been warned not to fall into the trap of progress. As the Lord allows His favor to flow, let us be on our knees to pray! If problems brought us to prayer, the more we should be on our knees when things are progressing, for it is here that we are most vulnerable to forget God.