Pit Stop

In this post, I'd like to talk about something that I do a lot. When I pray, it's often because I'm feeling really low, or I feel like I've got no other possible option. It equates to treating prayer like a pit stop.

It often feels as though we go to church to re-fuel spiritually, as though while we sit in our pews listening to sermons and reading the Bible and singing hymns and the like, we each have a petrol nozzle inserted in our arms which is pumping us full of the Holy Spirit until our Spirit Metre reads 'full' at the end of the service and we go out to run on it. By the time Sunday morning comes round again, the little needle on our Metre is hovering dangerously in the red zone next to a giant EMPTY and we need a top-up again.

This is not how we should approach church, or prayer. It's not enough to go to church and then ignore God for the rest of the week as though we don't need Him anymore cause we're full enough, thank-you-very-much, because more often than not if we try to live this way we'll find ourselves running out mid-week, and then we say a few prayers to try and make it till the church service on Sunday when we receive our full top-up.

The point is, if we try and live like this, we'll only ever feel full directly after church, or directly after a mid-week mini-top-up prayer. This is something I do a lot. I find myself feeling really low during the week and to counter that low feeling I say a prayer, and instantly feel a little better. Then I realise that I was only praying for the improved feeling I get, rather than because I had anything to say when I was praying. Instead, we should be praying constantly, because if we expect a single act of worship or prayer to sustain us until the next time we go to church, we'll find ourselves running on empty more often than we can manage.