How often do you pray? Do you pray each day? How many times a day? Or are you almost a stranger to prayer, offering one up only in times of trouble or bowing your head to share one when you’re attending a feast or a funeral? If you profess to be a Christian, how can you not pray? That’s like saying you love your spouse but never talk or listen to him or her! Prayer is the one direct communication channel open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, between us and our God. And if you believe God isn’t listening to you, rest assured it’s not because there’s a problem at His end of the line, but at yours. And moreover, it really is a two-way communication line, with God ready to not only listen to you, but to answer your prayers, pour His love into your heart, and tell you what you are to do to follow His plan for your life. A call from God is as unmistakeable as a thunderclap and if you haven’t heard it, you’ve been ignoring Him! Did you not get the answer to your prayers? Even “No” is an answer, but we don’t like to hear that! God loves us so much, He is willing to have us turn our backs, hopefully only temporarily, because He knows every moment of our lives down to the last second, and what is best for us.
I remember the first time I heard God answer a prayer for me, as if it was yesterday. I had been concerned about losing my current job due to cutbacks, and was praying daily about whether I should leave before the axe fell or stay and try to ride it out. I was driving to work, finishing my latest prayer as I turned into the gate, when I heard Him say “Stay.” I had no doubt this one single word was the answer to my prayers and I followed His direction. A few months later, my husband fell off the roof of our house and broke his back. If I had not stayed where I was, with its wonderful medical coverage and a management who understood my need for a flexible work schedule to help nurse him in the ensuing months, we might have lost our savings, our house, and the very job I had been considering taking. Yes, all those things are physical things of this world, but staying with that company also allowed me to grow closer in that difficult time to three special Christian co-workers who showed me what it meant to live my faith. Not only did I end up working another 14 years for that company, but the accident and it’s challenges led a few months later, to my husband getting baptized, which was the answer to ANOTHER prayer of mine.
There’s much concern in our culture these days about radical Muslims and what threats they pose to our country. Believe it or not, I’m not nearly as concerned about the physical threat of jihadistic suicide bombers as I am about the implacable juggernaut of a thoroughly committed people who live a “faith” which is diametrically opposed to Christianity, to the point of striving to “cleansing the world” of all Christians. I’ve heard it said that a small force of fighters who are totally committed to their cause frequently overcomes a vastly superior force of conscripted or hired fighters. I’m concerned because I just heard the phrase “post-Christian” culture applied to our American society. If the majority of our citizenry are not just tepid about their faith, but downright unengaged, or worse yet, actively hostile to Christianity, we are lost indeed. We are fighting with both our hands tied behind our backs.
I ask again, how often do you pray? Do you realize a practicing Muslim prays five times a day, every single day? Five times a day, they stop whatever they are doing, despite business meetings, movie times, class exams, tennis matches, or whatever, and talk with their god. Moreover, at least once a day, these prayers are recited together in a mosque, where they have a chance to mingle with like-minded people. Do we mingle with other Christians on a regular basis? Or is it only once a week on Sunday morning, with a quick dash for the parking lot once the closing prayer is done? Again, we are falling behind in arming ourselves against the enemy. Do not for one moment kid yourself that the enemy is a religion. It’s the eternal enemy, the one we have suffered with since Lucifer rebelled against God. Do not fear - God will prevail, but it may not happen in our physical lifetimes.
I haven’t studied the history of the Crusades, but I know the struggle was to regain control of Jerusalem from the Turkish Muslims, who during the wars, built a mosque on their holiest site in the city, now called the Dome of the Rock. And that was a thousand years ago. How many people have died in that part of the world since then, in the name of religion? And how many in this country will do the same? Yes, I believe it will come to a continued rise in active persecution of Christians, as long as we continue to step aside, keep silent, and hope no one notices we said nothing when we could have defended our faith. I, for one, am sick of being politically correct and morally bankrupt. I’m sick of apologizing when someone is offended that I said grace before a meal, or stopped to pray before starting a presentation. Why is it that anyone can publicly practice any kind of religion, including heathen arts and devil worship in the name of religious freedom, except Christians? I want to be courageous and proud to state I am a Christian, despite the jeers and eye-rolling of liberals. I don’t mean to go out of my way to puff myself up, as if I had anything to be proud of, but to be strong enough to admit I belong to Jesus and believe in the Bible and the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit without reservation. I want to speak out when someone states a “fact” of evolution and remind them that there is an alternative explanation - the intelligent design of the universe by a loving and all-powerful God.
I’m not a brave person. In fact, I have come to realize I’m a real weenie about many things. But I’d sure like to claim the courage of Paul, who proclaimed the teachings of Jesus far and wide, even though he was the best persecutor of Christians before his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus.
So I am taking a note from my limited understanding of the Muslim religion, and offering prayers much more frequently and regularly than I did. My prayers are not grandiose or fluent, but they don’t carry nearly so many petitions as praises, now. And they are punctured with moments of silence, when I strive to hear the Spirit returning my “call.”