GRACE
One of the first things the flight attendant says when we are seated for take off is, ‘in the event
of any emergency, put your own oxygen mask on first, before helping others”. If oxygen isn’t flowing into our own lungs first, we are in no position to help others get access to oxygen either, so both our lives are at stake.
Prayer is our God shaped ‘oxygen mask’. Prayer is the conduit for God to ‘flow’ in our lives.
When we entrust God with our burdens, we literally ‘breathe’ easier. As we pray and invite God into our situations and circumstances, His grace empowers us to do what we can’t do in our own strength.
2 Corinthians 12:8-10 says, His grace is sufficient for us, for His power is made perfect in
weakness. When we are weak, then we are actually strong because God’s power rests on us and enables us.
God and I have been in a 30-year conversation (aka: prayer). He has heard it all from me.
My fears, mistakes, hopes, laments, thankfulness, the cries for help and forgiveness, the
requests for clarity, insight, understanding and wisdom. There is nothing he doesn’t know about me.
As I’ve laid it all down, his graciousness (compassion and kindness) has empowered me and
moved on the circumstances of my life. He has literally made a way where there seemed to be
none, countless times.
God never sleeps. Psalm 121:1
He never stops working. John 5:17
He is available to us 24/7.
Yes, we can still breathe without prayer, but our breath is laboured. Our own strength only gets
us so far. Lean on Him. Leaning on Him is a sign of strength, not weakness. You are humbling yourself and saying, ‘God – you know best, “Not my will but yours”.
In Mark 6:34 Jesus was filled with compassion when he saw that we were like sheep without
a shepherd. Prayer positions you to be ‘tended to’ by Jesus like a shepherd tends to his sheep, directing their course.