We Need To Pray
“Every one of us needs half an hour of prayer each day, except when we are busy — then we need an hour.” ~ St. Francis de Sales
We all need to eat in order to fuel our bodies. If we go without refueling, we will become sluggish, our thinking will become foggy, and we might make mistakes, some might even be dangerous mistakes. Just as food is to our body, prayer is to our faith lives and our souls. If we do not fuel our souls with prayer, we will be sluggish in the faith and may make horrible mistakes.
Yet, when we become busy, what is often the first thing to go? That most important thing: fuel. We have all dashed off for classes or work without eating breakfast. Maybe we got up late and were running behind schedule. We figured that if we took the time to eat, we would be late to work. So, we dashed off and got a horrible headache early into the day or maybe experienced dizziness as our blood sugar levels dropped. So many things may have happened because we chose to skip our morning nutrition.
There is something that is common for most people. If there is anything we are going to skip in the morning — breakfast or prayer — most would choose to skip prayer. They don’t want the headache or the dizziness that comes with lack of nutrition. But they fail to realize that they are doing the same thing to their souls. When we do not fortify ourselves with prayer, we feel the effects later.
How many times have we failed to pray in the morning and then felt ourselves uptight or irritable later in the day. Maybe we had a hard time focusing. Maybe we were uncharitable to others when there was no reason to be. It was all because we did not focus ourselves on God and His love that morning. Going off to school or work without spiritual focus is like taking a plane off without setting a heading in its navigational computer. We will drift all over the place and may even crash and burn.
Take the time to pray today. It is not only a good idea, it is crucial to the nourishment of our souls and to the spiritual focus that we will need to maintain throughout our day.
FAITH ACTION: No matter how busy you might get today, don’t forget to set aside time to pray.