Why Don’t We Pray More?
by Josh Graves
Greetings all, I hope you all are having a wonderful week. As I thought about prayer this week I had to ask my self, “is my prayer life what it should be?” Now for most of us, in our humility, we would say no, and we would be right. But how do we know our prayer life isn’t enough? Is there some standard that says if you pray this much then your prayer life would be what it should be? For me to answer the question “is my prayer life what it should be” I had to first examine my fruit. But why my fruit? After all prayer is not a fruit, right? Well, prayer indeed is not a fruit or at least shouldn’t be treated that way. I say that because fruit is meant to be displayed so that its beauty might catch the eye of the eater, thus allowing the trees purpose to be fulfilled. The purpose of any fruit tree is to produce fruit. There is a story in the bible where Jesus saw a fig tree from afar so he went to it to collect some fruit. But when he got there he found no fruit so he cursed the tree. The disciples were their when he did it and when they returned the next day they were surprised to see that the leaves had withered. Jesus said in John 15:5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” The bible teaches that our purpose is to Glorify God, and the way we do that is by bearing much fruit. The only way we can produce fruit is if we are connected to the true vine who is Christ. Apart from him we can do nothing. So why should we examine our fruit? The answer is because the Bible teaches that apart from Christ we can’t produce fruit. We should be able to look at our fruit and tell how connected we are to Christ. If you look at the fruit in your life and you, like me, are not satisfied, then what more of a reason do we need to pray. If Christ abides in us then we ought to do are part in abiding in him as his word says. Prayer is unlike fruit in that it is not meant to be displayed for all to see. The roots of a tree though equally important to the whole tree, remains hidden just below the surface. Prayer is not something that we should boast in or display for all to see. Jesus, in Matt 23, spoke against the scribes and Pharisees for praying long prayers just to be seen by man. Though the roots of a tree are hidden, and have no beauty in which we marvel in, the tree could not live without them, for it would fall over and die. As believers we should go to our closets and pray to God in secret, and he who hears us in secret will reword us. When we begin to pray this way we are stretching our roots deep into the soil of the Word, which enables us to stand strong through the storms of life and produce much fruit. Prayer is not easy, but in the end it is the means by which we grow in Christ and glorify our great God. The only way that our prayer life can be all it should be is if we keep stretching our roots deeper into the soil of God’s word. Pray continually; do not give up, and in the end we will produce much God glorifying fruit. Amen
