As we continue to consider common reasons for
prayerlessness, think with me about one that may be less than obvious. (You can read the first two articles in
this series here and here.) Sometimes
we don’t pray because of the implicit belief that we are better able to handle
our concerns than God is. In other
words, sometimes we don’t pray because we’re prideful. Peter connects pride to prayerlessness
in 1 Peter 5:6-7
Humble yourselves,
therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt
you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
I’m inclined to believe that when Peter uses the phrase
“casting all your anxieties on him,” he has prayer in mind because this
language echoes so closely Paul’s phrasing from Phil 4:6, which does explicitly
mention prayer: do not be anxious about
anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let
your requests be made known to God.
For Peter, the act of casting one’s anxieties or concerns
upon the Lord is an act of humbling oneself. There is a connection between trusting the Lord and
humility. In fact, the command in
verse 6 to humble oneself is accomplished by casting one’s anxieties upon the
Lord.
The text gives us a couple of reasons to trust the
Lord, or to cast our anxieties upon Him. First, God is powerful.
Peter writes, Humble yourselves,
therefore, under the mighty hand of God… This speaks of God’s ability to help us. He spoke all things in to existence and
upholds the existence of all things by the word of His power (Gen 1; Heb1:3). Surely, dealing with our
temporal concerns poses no strain on Almighty God.
Second, God cares for
His children. God has
marshaled all His resources to accomplish His great purpose for us, our
transformation into the likeness of His Son. All of salvation history has proven His indomitable care for
us. As Paul notes in Romans 8:32,
God’s grace toward us in Christ in the past proves that His loving disposition
toward us is guaranteed in the future: He
who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also
with him graciously give us all things?
When we put those two truths together – that God is
all-powerful and that He cares for us – we find that He has both the ability and
the inclination to work all things for our good, just as He has promised (Rom 8:28-30). And this is why it is so
incredibly prideful to remain prayerless, not casting our concerns upon Him. When we do this, we are making the
implicit statement that even though God is almighty and supremely loving toward
us, we are better equipped to deal with the situation than He is. Our prayerlessness simultaneously
denies that He is powerful and caring and
exalts us above Him.
When we are prayerless, we should first repent of our
pride. We should confess our
implicit denial that He is powerful and loving. We should ask forgiveness for thinking more highly of
ourselves than of Him. We should
return to the Scriptures and remind ourselves of the Lord’s testimony about
Himself -- the Word testifies
repeatedly to the power and care of the Lord for us. Finally, we should humble ourselves by praying and trusting
Him with what concerns us.
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