Prayer is a time waster.

[Editor's Note: This concept is one of the hardest for me to live out. I constantly look at myself and say, "You need to be more like that!" So please don't feel as if I am the perfect one when it comes to prayer, it is something that I am working on in my life as well.]

At some level I believe that prayer is a time waster. Bare with me on this, I believe that prayer is of the utmost importance in the life of a Christian, that ones spiritual health is tied into ones prayer life. But prayer is a time waster. Here’s what I mean:

We spend all kinds of energy looking to solve the problems in our life. Marriage problems? Well let’s read this book. Let’s go to counseling. Let’s spend time together talking about our personal differences, reminiscing about the good times, and rekindling our love. Financial problems? Let’s make a budget. Let’s cut back on our spending. Let’s attempt to make our residence a bit more energy efficient. Hopefully you get my point, when we come to problems we look to do, do, do in an attempt to solve our problems. We like to think we can take care of our own problems, but reality is – you can’t do this.

A quick look at the amount of people on blood pressure pills should help us to see this...

Let’s think about tithe. For most people in the world, the concept of first giving away 10% of their income means that money will be really tight in their homes. We usually think we’ll need 100% of what we have to be able to get ends to meet. One way of looking at tithe is that it is God’s way of saying, “I can do more with 90% than you can do with 100%.” The whole point of tithe is for God to help us see that He is our provider! If we trust in God, He will provide for us. After all, don’t the lilies and sparrows have what they need?

God is asking you, in your life, to do the same thing with your time. There is always more than enough to do that will fill up a 24-hour cycle; more than enough activity to keep us occupied, busy, and stressed. As human beings we are like a hive of caffeinated bees…always running around here and there, endlessly busy. Yet God asks that we slow ourselves down – waste some of our precious time – in order to connect with him, to ask him for guidance, wisdom, support, and a way through the craziness of our life.

If God can do more with 90% of our wealth than we can do with 100%, think of how much more can he do with 23 hours than we can do with 24.

So God is asking you to waste some of our precious time; to slow down, to stop solving your problems, and come to Him. He knows that we are - like lemmings [in how we want to solve our own problems], we'll keep going until we fall right over the edge. So he asks us to trust him, to stop, to waste time and talk with him, confess to him, confide in him, and listen to him.

Let's go waste some time.