Life is busy.
And sometimes it feels so busy that prayer becomes pushed to the background.
But what if we changed our perspective on prayer?
What if it wasn’t that we were too busy to pray … but that we are too busy NOT to pray?
In other words, what if we saw the busy seasons of our lives not as an excuse that keeps us from spending purposeful time in prayer with God – but the busyness was the reason we prayed all the more.
Martin Luther is famously quoted as saying he prayed two hours a day unless he was busy, then he would pray for three hours.
It was likely Charles Spurgeon who made the quote popular from this section of one of his sermons (Degrees of Power Attending the Gospel, 1865):
I like that saying of Martin Luther, when he says, “I have so much business to do today, that I shall not be able to get through it with less than three hours’ prayer.” Now, most people would say, “I have so much business to do today, that I have only three minutes for prayer; I cannot afford the time.” But Luther thought that the more he had to do, the more he must pray, or else he could not get through it. That is a blessed kind of logic: may we understand it! “Praying and provender hinder no man’s journey.” If we have to stop and pray, it is no more hindrance than when the rider has to stop at the farrier’s to have his horse’s shoe fastened; for if he went on without attending to that it may be that ere long he would come to a stop of a far more serious kind.
But the point is, busyness is not an excuse to keep us from prayer – it should be the reason we intentionally spend time with God …
Busyness should cause us to recognize our lack, our insufficiency, and our great need for God to accomplish the activity and to make it through the day.
It is merely pride to think we can do it on our own.
Christianity is about dependence and abiding – allowing the all-sufficiency of God to meet, supply, and empower our lives to meet the need and accomplish what He desires to do in and through us.
Are you too busy to pray?
Or are you too busy not to pray?
As Corrie ten Boom reminds us, “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”
No matter how busy you might be, don’t sacrifice your intimacy and communion with God.