Finding Sacred Moments: Prioritizing Prayer in a Hectic World

Ever found yourself struggling to find time for prayer in a world that never stops buzzing? You're not alone. Join us as we explore the fascinating challenges of balancing a vibrant spiritual life amidst our chaotic schedules. We start with a humorous tale of being bombarded by texts during prayer, highlighting the distractions that technology brings into our sacred moments.

Reflecting on the life of Jesus, we delve into how He managed to carve out moments of solitude and connection with God despite His demanding ministry. By examining passages from Mark and Hebrews, we underscore the importance of setting boundaries and seeking solitude. This episode challenges the cultural norm of constant accessibility, advocating for intentional time with God to recharge and gain spiritual strength.

Finally, we discuss the transformative power of consistent, heartfelt prayer. It's more than a routine—it's an opportunity for divine guidance and growth. We tackle common excuses for neglecting prayer and share insights on how aligning our lives with God's will can make us more effective vessels of His light. This episode is a call to reevaluate priorities and commit to making prayer an integral part of our daily lives for personal and communal transformation.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:05

I am. I started out. We started this series last week and it's all about prayer and and we talked last week about the importance of Jesus teaching us, and you know, the the Lord's Prayer and kind of establishing for us how that oh sorry, hold on, okay, sorry about that. And we talked about the important. Okay, sorry, okay, we taught, okay, who in the world is texting me. Okay, okay, let me focus here. Okay, so we talked about the important. Okay, I'm just tired of this right now. You know I'm over it. By the way, that was on purpose, thanks to my brother back there texting me.

Speaker 1: 2:12

One of the biggest problems we have in the world today is we're distracted. We are constantly connected and overwhelmed by people. By the way, that's kind of a funny thing to laugh at, but I cannot tell you how many people at right around 11 o'clock every day message me, call me, text me. I'm like you guys know where I am right, you kind of know what I do. And then you know there's been multiple times that I've been here on Sunday morning and like someone calls the office phone and I'm like, once again Sunday morning, like people are in church. But the reason that we need to talk about that is because life is so full of busyness. So let's do a poll, okay. How many of you would admit that your life and your schedule is way too busy? Life and your schedule is way too busy. Okay, how many of you would be willing to admit that part of the busyness of your schedule might be your fault? How many of you, if you're being honest, would say that you need to set better boundaries in your life? How many of you, just being honest, how many of you would say that you make sure that you prioritize spending time with God every day, not as many hands? Huh, life is busy. We live in a very chaotic world. We have 24-7 connection to people. It's gotten to a point in life that if I call someone, if they don't answer the first time I call them, I don't call them back, because now I'm offended, because I know you have your phone and I'm just assuming at this point you're ignoring me. Or if I send a text message, there's like a five-minute window. If you don't respond back, I'm like, hey, are you dead? I sent a text message. There's like a five-minute window. If you don't respond back, I'm like, hey, are you dead? Like, did something happen to you Like we are so connected that we're just constantly busy. There's constantly updates. You know we're looking at baseball scores, we're looking at football scores. You know we're talking to our gardener, like there's so many things that are happening in life and it's so overwhelming that we find ourselves making God the last part of our day, if we're lucky.

Speaker 1: 5:06

Prayer is designed to be and we talked about it last week prayer is designed to be this very relational conversation with the one who created you. I think about the relationship I have with my mom, the relationship I have with my mom. If it was up to her, me and my mom would talk every single day. I guarantee it. We almost do, and that's not a bad thing, by the way. Those are good things. But the way that I develop a relationship with my family, the way that I develop a relationship with my children, the way that I develop a healthy relationship with my wife, is by having regular conversation. There's been times when Danny and I have realized that we've gone the whole day and not spoken to each other, because the kids were just so much that day. By the way, and I don't think this is a coincidence those are the days when we find ourselves most frustrated with each other Because we did not prioritize the marriage at the moment. We allowed life to become busy, whether outside influences, whether our kids, whether our family. We chose not to prioritize our relationship and our relationship suffered. The relationship we have with God is the same way. If we don't prioritize a relationship with God, regular communication with the one who made us, that relationship starts to suffer.

Speaker 1: 6:54

Being busy is an excuse. It's not even a good one, because most of you just admitted that the reason you're so busy is probably your fault, because you couldn't say no when you were supposed to. You took on too much responsibility. And then you find yourself sitting in a room at night trying to go to sleep and you think, why did I bring all this on myself? And then you wake up tomorrow and you do it all over again. And you do it all over again. We're a glutton for busyness. We like to be busy. Busy is how we define success. Jesus didn't define busyness as successful, but he was busy. So, mark, chapter 1, verses 21 through 35. I'll give you a second to get there. Mark, chapter 1, 21 through 35.

Speaker 1: 8:01

It said they went to Capernaum and when the Sabbath came, jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. Just then, a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out what do you want with us, jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are the Holy One of God. Be quiet, said Jesus sternly. Come out of him. The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. The people were all so amazed that they asked each other what is this? A new teaching, and with authority. He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.

Speaker 1: 8:44

News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee. As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the homes of Simon and Andrew. Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever and they immediately told Jesus about her. So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her. She began to wait on them. That evening after the sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town gathered at the door and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.

Speaker 1: 9:22

We're going to pause there and come back to verse 35. So Jesus shows up. He does incredible teaching. He teaches with authority. Can you imagine being a Pharisee and you hear someone say oh, jesus teaches with authority, unlike you guys. And so he teaches with authority. He heals a man whose demons possess. He heals Peter's mother and all of a sudden everyone hears of his presence and what he's doing and it says the whole town gathered at the door waiting for him to do the same for them.

Speaker 1: 10:04

I don't know if you've ever worked in the service industry, but if you have, I can tell you just from my own personal experience that when you are kind of sitting at the top of the food chain, you are a very in-demand person. I remember and I know I've talked about this before prior to coming back here we lived in Columbus and I worked for a candle company and I was logistics manager at the time and I remember I was sitting in my office one time and our tech guy. He would come in and work on my computer and we would actually just kind of hang out, but he would work on my computer and we were sitting there and one of the ways we communicated was emails. And you know, everyone sent an email and so we're sitting there and my email is attached to my phone and so he's sitting there probably for about a half an hour and every time I get an email my phone goes ding, ding, ding, ding, ding ding. And so about a half hour goes by and he looks at me and he says I counted just now how many emails you got. He said 127 in a half hour window.

Speaker 1: 11:31

I was like yeah, I was like there's so many email groups that I'm a part of and there's so much stuff to oversee in like a busy season. He's like why, like I don't know, like that's just how we've accepted it, right that that's the culture that's been created here. I I would go on vacation for a week and come back and have thousands of emails that I would have to pour through just to catch up and listen. It happens the same way in ministry too. Like I am on call 24-7. That's the expectation of someone who fills the role that I fill as a minister is that I am on call 24-7. So at 3 o'clock in the morning if someone has a crisis, they call me and, once again, these are expectations that I understand. I know that I brought them in.

Speaker 1: 12:24

Jesus invited those people. When he healed the man who was demon-p, he brought. When he healed the man who was demon-possessed, when he healed Peter's mother, he understood that the reaction of the people around him was going to be hey, I want that too, because people are drawn to Jesus in masses because of what he does. His three years of ministry he changed more lives, transformed more people than you and I will probably ever encounter. But Jesus understood something that you and I kind of get Jesus understood that everything he was called to do was going to be by the strength that God gave him and not the strength of his flesh. So go on to verse 35.

Speaker 1: 13:19

After Jesus' incredible day of being busy healing the masses, casting out demons, mark 1, verse 35, says Verily early in the morning, while it was still dark, jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place where he prayed. In that moment, the moment that Jesus woke up, he prioritized above all things an interaction and a relationship with His Father. He was drained from the day before, overwhelmed, oversaturated, overstimulated, because everything was about everyone else. He gave and he gave and he gave and he gave and he gave. And he woke up the next day and he did it again, and the next day and the next day. He had three short years to do what he needed to do, but he prioritized spending time with God at the beginning of the day because he knew that without the strength of God, there was no way he could do this on his own.

Speaker 1: 14:49

We talk about living in a world where things are chaotic, things are stressful. We're constantly 24-7 at the beck and call of people. Jesus sets the stage that our prayer time should be done in a solitude place, free of distraction, before anyone else started their day. He made a priority to spend time with God Before the kids woke up, before your spouse woke up, before your boss woke up hopefully I had a boss that would call me at five in the morning. I'm like I don't know why you're calling me. But before everything, before the day even started, jesus made a point that he was going to spend time with God.

Speaker 1: 15:39

Matthew 6, 6 says this but when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen, and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. You know, it's so interesting because as Jesus goes through we talked about last week the Lord's Prayer he tells us how to pray, he gives us kind of the layout of what it looks like to pray, but he establishes the importance of finding time to get away to have quiet time with God. I talked about this last week the school that we used to go to when Danny and I were in Cincinnati. I actually kind of got some information wrong. We were off on Mondays, so Tuesday through Friday, we would every morning, 7 o'clock in the morning, before anyone else got to church, we would go and sit in the chapel for about an hour and a half and we would pray.

Speaker 1: 16:35

And it was so hard to do because my it's, I hate my brain, Like my brain drives me nuts. I'm the kind of person that my personality is. I'm going to let you like into my inner thoughts a little bit. So if you get scared, I'm sorry, but I have like a priority in my head of things that I need to get done, and so if you give me something to do, if you don't give me a date and time, I prioritize that according to everything else that I'm doing. So if you want something done tomorrow and you don't tell me it needs to be done tomorrow, I'm probably going to do it next week. Like that's just how my brain works. And so what's crazy is is, when I find myself sitting in silence, the first thing my brain does is goes hey, you there, by the way, let's go ahead and list all of the things you have to do for the next two weeks which you haven't thought about all morning. But let's start now.

Speaker 1: 17:37

Like the moment that I sit down, the moment that it's quiet, my brain starts running because, like I said, we're glutton for busyness. We've convinced ourselves that if I'm a good father, good husband, good preacher, I have to be doing something. I don't have time to sit and be quiet. And Jesus says you better figure that out, because he understood more than anyone in all of humanity what it is to be busy. But he never let his busyness get in the way of his prayer time Because, as all of you know, when we stop praying, life becomes crazier, life becomes harder. The things that I can accomplish on my own are limited to my own abilities and my own skill set, and at some point I become overwhelmed because I no longer have the ability to do what I need to do. Jesus points to God and says Listen, I need you to understand that everything you do, that God will help you through it, god will empower you, he will strengthen you, he will give you what you need, but you need to prioritize a relationship with him above all things. Ben Merrill says this he who runs from Jesus in the morning scarcely finds him during the day. That's convicting, because once our day starts, life happens. Things get busy, people start calling us, the demands become overwhelming, whether it's our work or our job or our relationships. The greatest thing that God ever gave us was Jesus this way to have this incredibly intimate connection with him. And when Jesus says he uses the word Abba, this fatherly love, he has this relationship with God that he establishes that God is like this loving, caring creator. And when we look at our lives, for whatever reason, we prioritize God oftentimes at the bottom of our list.

Speaker 1: 20:26

I talked to some people this week. I talked to some people this week and I asked them to give me some reasons why they don't spend time with God, and here's just a couple of them. I don't have time. My kids need me all the time it seems. My kids need me all the time it seems. I don't know what to do when I'm spending time with God. I can't sit there in silence because my brain runs rampant. God understands that I don't have time for him. I mean, clearly he made me right. God knows that I'm busy and he knows that I'll get to it. Oh, I do, but I don't remember that night what I did. I spend time in prayer with God, but I'll be honest, I'm on my phone. I'll stop praying and answer a text message. I leave the TV on because I can pray and watch TV. It's not that I don't want to, I just can't make it happen. I'll be okay, I can do this on my own. It's so interesting.

Speaker 1: 22:06

We live in a culture that has taken away prayer from so many different facets of life. We live in a culture where we haphazardly say the words when we find someone who's in a situation, when they're having a bad day, and we say, oh, I'll pray for you, and then we walk away. And we never did. We tell people that all the time is some weird mechanism to comfort them I'll pray for you, but then we never prioritize that prayer. We never actually make time for it. We talk about how we can't understand why we don't have a deeper, more intimate relationship with the God who made us. And then we look at our lives and we realize that we don't make Him a priority. We wonder why there's no vision in our churches. We wonder why there's no vision in our families, in our country. And it's because we lack the one thing that Jesus understood, and that prayer is essential to your very existence as a human being.

Speaker 1: 23:13

Jesus cast out demons, healed the sick, fed thousands, taught with authority, turned the world upside down in all of it. He never gave up his prayer life Because he understood without God he couldn't do what he was able to do. So that's the question this morning what is your excuse? What are you doing in your life that is so overwhelming, that's so busy that you can't make time for the one who made you? And I realize that that might sound harsh, but I'm just trying to be honest with you and I'm trying to be honest with myself. If I look at the excuses that I can come up with, none of them matter, because Jesus did far greater things than I ever did, but he never denied a relationship with his dad. He never allowed people or situations to get in the way.

Speaker 1: 24:48

If you read through the Gospels, there's actually times where Jesus leaves the masses of people that are looking to be healed to seek solitary and quietness, because he understood that that is more important than me healing people at this moment. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine how offended people would be if they came to Jesus to be healed and he was like hold on, I need to go have some quiet time. Can you imagine if you go up to your preacher and you're like, hey, I need to talk and he says, hold on, I can't do that right now because I have to prioritize my family. I have to prioritize my prayer time.

Speaker 1: 25:28

We act like the busyness has to be in everyone's life. So when we come across people who have boundaries, who set the tone of hey, listen, right now I'm not accessible because I'm doing something, we get offended because we expect everyone to drop everything they should do and they should spend time with us. And God and Jesus establishes listen. That's great, I love you, but my relationship with God is my number one priority. By the way, that means my relationship with God is more important than my relationship with my wife, with my kids, with my family, with my friends, because the one who created me desires nothing more than to spend time with me, desires nothing more than to spend time with me and to energize me and equip me and show me and give me everything I need to fulfill the purpose he's called me to. If prayer is the most essential thing that you and I have as believers, why is it oftentimes the last thing we do?

Speaker 1: 26:41

I love this verse in Hebrews 4, verse 16. It says Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Paul writes and says let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, Confidence, confidence in the fact that Paul spends so much time approaching God that he knows, when he goes into his presence he's going to encounter him. He's going to experience him, that God will show up. That's the kind of prayer life that I want to have that when I go to God in prayer, I know he's going to be there. I know he's going to listen to me. I know that my life is going to be changed. I know he's going to challenge me. I know he's going to challenge me, I know he's going to equip me.

Speaker 1: 27:36

I know he's going to convict me, because I'm so in tune with what he wants, that whatever part of my day that I spend with Him, and if I do it well and I do it right and I prioritize it, that the busyness of life will be okay. Because, no matter how busy I am, nothing is more important than my time spent alone with the one who created me To do it any other way? Oh man, going through life, living a life where I'm in charge and where I'm at the helm, and doing everything that I want to do on my own power, my own ability. When I do that, I'm making myself God of my own life, I'm worshiping me. It's idolatry, because I'm telling God that, no matter how much he has in store for me, no matter how much he sacrificed for me, that I'm enough on my own. And all throughout scriptures, jesus proves that that can't be.

Speaker 1: 29:19

The one who is God in the flesh still made a point to spend time in prayer. He prioritized that above healing, above sending people from demons, above teaching. Everything he did was bathed in prayer when he went to the cross, before he went to the cross. He spent time in prayer as the crowds overwhelmed him. He spent time in prayer as they sought direction. He spent time in prayer as they sought direction. He spent time in prayer. Sometimes, before he had important conversations, he spent time in prayer.

Speaker 1: 30:05

Prayer is essential to a healthy relationship with God. Relationship with God. Prayer invites God intentionally into our life to ask him to come in, to challenge us, to mold us, to change us, to transform us, to prioritize his kingdom above all things. Jesus doesn't. In the Lord's prayer, your kingdom come, your will be done. Prayer connects us with God so that we can be the best vessel for who he wants us to be, that we can be the light and the darkness of this world.

Speaker 1: 30:53

A Christian who doesn't pray and that's an oxymoron A Christian who doesn't prioritize spending time in prayer with the one who created them is going to have a very difficult time in life. They're going to continue to go at it alone instead of leaning on the one who's all-powerful, almighty, infinite in wisdom. A church that doesn't pray will die. I can prove it All over this country. I can prove it All over this country. Our church is closing their doors left and right. A church who doesn't pray can accidentally do things that God doesn't want them to do. They start to make decisions that are not scriptural, based on what God is calling us to do. Instead, they start to allow feelings to get in the way, because they're not seeking the kingdom of God, they're seeking the kingdom of self.

Speaker 1: 32:02

Prayer helps us to stay away from idolatry. Prayer helps us to embrace the culture around us, but also to stand against the culture, because the culture isn't scriptural. Prayer gives us everything we need to be, everything God wants us to be. It is the number one most essential thing we have in connecting with God and learning his will, and yet, for some reason, it's not important enough for us to prioritize, and we wonder why the culture is the way that it is.

Speaker 1: 32:41

Imagine just for a moment that every time someone told you they prayed for you, they actually did it. Imagine every time you told someone hey, I'm going to pray for you, you actually stop what you're doing and you pray for them. You prioritize them. Imagine waking up every morning and saying God, whatever part of this morning is quiet, it's yours. Imagine a life that can be changed and how your family, imagine the busyness of your life could be changed by prayer. I believe it's possible.

Speaker 1: 33:23

I think Jesus proved it. He spent time in prayer and because he spent time in prayer, he knew the will of God. And because he knew the will of God, he was able to delegate certain responsibilities. Because he was able to do that, he knew the will of God and because he knew the will of God, he was able to delegate certain responsibilities. Because he was able to do that, he knew the will of God, he could tell people no, he set boundaries. He didn't do everything everyone asked, because he prioritized what his father wanted above all things, and he found all of that out in his prayer time.

Speaker 1: 33:53

Prayer is essential, just like you and I. Eating it feeds us. So why do we wait? Why do we wait till we're starving to finally embrace it? Why do we wait till life becomes too hard to finally ask the one who made us for some help? Why do we enter into conversations, especially difficult ones, without praying and asking God for some guidance first on those conversations? God for some guidance first on those conversations. Like I said and listen, I know I feel like I've been beating people over the head and that's really not my intention, because it's me too. I'm not good at it, I try. I'm not perfect. Life gets distracting. But if we're really honest with ourselves, jesus did so much stuff I mean in one day did so much stuff but he never let that get in the way of praying. I would argue he was able to do what he did because he prioritized prayer first. Because he prioritized prayer first. Imagine what we could do as Christians if we really believed that prayer was everything we need to get through the day. It could change everything. Let's pray.