Work, Rest, and Pray

Daily writing prompt

What do you wish you could do more every day?

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Back in the spring of 1980, Madness released an EP called Work, Rest & Play. The title was based on an advert for Mars Bars. The phrase stuck with me. It’s all about balance. But I do want to spend more time engaging with God. Whenever I worship or pray, I think to myself, “Why aren’t I doing more of this”. As I grow older, I want to be more like my heavenly self. I do cherish all my earthly memories, but I often think of lines from the hymn, Abide with Me:

2 Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away.
Change and decay in all around I see.
O thou who changest not, abide with me.

I’m only in my early sixties. I might have a long time to go yet. But for the past few years, I am beginning to feel that I have been teleported into old age. I should really be 18 😀. Perhaps it’s an “old life crisis”.

So, why do I have Work, Rest and Pray in my title? I don’t see anything wrong with play. I don’t have to remind myself to play music or computer games. I do need to remind myself to pray. In some senses, it comes naturally to me, but I want to do it more.

Prayer is like low hanging fruit. God is easy to get to. He is only a prayer away. But is He really easy to get to? Without a mediator (Jesus who paid the price for our sin), the door would be closed to us. And if we go with the wrong attitude, we can’t expect to be heard.

John 15:16
¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.

James 1:6-7
⁶ But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷ That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 

But if we go in a true spirit of Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication, we can be assured that He will hear our prayers and respond in the best possible way. The best possible way isn’t always what we want.

Yet God has our interests at heart – or at least our best interests. What we’re interested in isn’t necessarily in our best interest.

So, perhaps I should have used the title “Pray, Work, Rest, and Pray”. But it’s too late to change it now, given that I’ve referred to the current phrase in the paragraph above, and I don’t want to bother going back and editing it 😀.

So, let’s explore a few songs about prayer.

Maybe not everyone approves of these, but I could have shown some that are even more distant from the hymns that we know and love:

• Save a Prayer – Duran Duran
• Living on a Prayer – Bon Jovi
• Like a Prayer – Madonna
• Pray – Take That
• Praying For Time – George Michael
• Pray – MC Hammer

Yet, whoever sings or talks about prayer, and whatever the context, my hope is that it’ll remind people of God, and the fact that we can reach out to him.

And here are a couple of actual hymns about prayer:

Colossians 3:17
¹⁷ And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.