Last week I shared part 1 of my blog post series on prayer.  This week, I want to share with you the second reason why we avoid prayer.

I love productivity.  I confess that I am addicted to it.  The more I produce, the better I feel about myself.  However, this addiction is as dangerous to my soul as meth is to my body.

Let’s face it, it feels good to do good work.  When you contribute to a cause, build a successful business, or meet the needs of people in ministry, there is a satisfaction that wells up in our souls that feels irresistibly good.  Good work can give you an identity and a purpose that affirms that your life matters.  In fact, God gave us good work to do in the first place when he put Adam and Even in his garden and instructed them to work by tending to his garden (Gen. 2:15).

So what’s the big deal with good work?  The danger in doing good work is that its “goodness” can corrupt our prayer life because it can make us feel important.

HERE IS THE second OF THREE REASONS WHY WE AVOID PRAYER:

I think we avoid prayer because we believe that our work is more important than God’s work.

No one would venture to confess this out loud, but when we turn our work into our vocation instead of our occupation, we make our work more important than God’s work.  Vocation is a word that comes from the latin “vocare,” which means “to call.”  In Genesis 1:27, God called each of us to bear his image which means that we are to put his work on display, not our own.  Adam and Eve’s work in tending the garden was their occupation, not their vocation.

When we get our vocation and occupation mixed up, we end up putting our own work on display, not God’s work.  When we put our work on display, we can become so enamored by what we are doing that we replay the tragic story of the Tower of Babel.  We work “to make our name great” instead of working “to make God’s name great.”

I think we avoid prayer because we believe that our work is more important than God's work. – Scott Vermillion Share on X

For instance when I worked as a pastor for a church, I found that serving people had an addictive quality to it.  Yes, it is good to serve people, but I also liked feeling good about my work.  However, when serving others became about my own self-importance, I was badly missing the mark.  I was trying to make my name great, not make God’s name great.

When we believe our lives are about making our own name great, we avoid prayer like the plague because it is at cross purposes with our own agenda.  We might still pray, but the thrust of our prayers is about getting God on our agenda.  However, the true purpose of prayer is to get us on God’s agenda.

Here’s a test to see if you you believe your work is more important than God’s work: When is the last time you took a solid 24 hours off from your work?  No email.  No texts.  No calls.  No meetings.  No thoughts or energy given to your work.  No significant actions taken.  Just 24 hours of uninterrupted free time with God, your spouse, family, and friends.  If you find yourself arguing, “I can’t take a day off because people need me” or “I have so much to do” or “I have to prepare for Sunday,” I think it’s time for a reorientation of your prayer life.

HERE IS WHAT YOU CAN DO THIS WEEK TO CHANGE YOUR AVOIDANCE OF PRAYER INTO COURAGE TO PRAY:

Say, “YES,” when Jesus invites you to “Come, follow me!”

In Matthew 4, Peter and his fishing buddies had come to believe that their work was more important than God’s work.  They worked all night but didn’t catch a thing.  To make matters worse, when they were about to head home Jesus commandeered Peter’s boat for his personal preaching platform to speak to the people who had followed him to the waters edge that morning.  Peter didn’t want to listen to a sermon by Jesus.  He was too preoccupied thinking about how to explain his failure at work to his wife and kids.

Then after his sermon, Jesus does something unexpected (he always does, doesn’t he?).  He tells Peter to work by throwing his nets overboard.  Peter argues and tries to tell Jesus that it is a pointless endeavor.  Yet, Jesus is unrelenting.  So Peter tosses over the nets probably just to show Jesus he doesn’t know anything about fishing.

However, it is only when Peter’s work is submitted under Jesus’ direction that Peter’s work becomes significant – he hauls in more than two boat loads of fish!  Jesus calls out Peter’s avoidance of Jesus in the great catch, and Peter responds by confessing his sin and asking Jesus to leave.  He feels unworthy for avoiding someone so great.  But Peter only gets it half right.  He rightly confesses his pride in putting his work ahead of Jesus’ work, but he tries to send Jesus away.  Jesus responds by re-establishing his true vocational calling with three simple words, “Come, follow me.”  Peter left everything at the sea shore that day, and did just that.

When we embrace our true vocation to be like God, we realign our work under the priority of God’s work.  Our vocation then serves as an invitation to pray in order to discover what God is up to in our lives.

Like Peter, we can get caught up by the wonder of God’s gracious call on our lives to be transformed from sinners into bearing the holy image of God.  When we hear those three words from Jesus, “Come, follow me,” we are bound to have our own sin revealed.  Like Peter, Jesus will reveal the priority we have placed on our own work that makes us avoid true prayer – a conversation that gets us on God’s agenda.  But don’t send Jesus away.  Stay and listen as he transforms your work into something significant by turning it from something that is about you into something that is about God.

The way to reclaim our true vocation to be like God is to take the Sabbath seriously.  We need to say, “YES,” when Jesus invites us to, “Come, follow me.”

We need days built into our week where we do nothing that can be judged as important.  We need at least a 24 hour period in our week where we break our addiction to work as a means to gaining our importance and significance in order to pray to the God whose work is truly important and makes us significant.

If you work in ministry, chances are this day will not be Sunday.  You will need to pick another day in the week to turn everything off.  It isn’t a day of entertainment.  It isn’t a day to get work done around the house.  It is a 24 hour period of time where you can embrace your true calling as a child of God, not as a spiritual leader.  To encourage you to pray on this day, put it in your calendar as an all day event.  When people want to meet with you on that day, you can tell them that you are already booked.

Today’s world is not so different than Peter’s world.  I believe that we live in a culture that prioritizes our work over God’s work.  It is all too easy to find our significance, value and meaning in what we do, and therefore avoid prayer altogether.  We need to hear Jesus’ invitation, “Come, follow me,” in order to reclaim our true vocation and place our work under Christ’s work.  In order to pray, take the Sabbath seriously and say, “YES,” to Jesus’ invitation to, “Come, follow me.”

If you take Christ up on his invitation, how do you practice the Sabbath in a way that leads you to pray and prioritize Christ’s work ahead of your own work?