“Just pray hard” cannot be the answer to all our problems. If that was the case, the Bible would have said: You can pray away all your problems; so pray hard.
Why do you think many Christians today advise others who are facing big or small problems to “Pray hard?”
I personally don’t have any idea why.
As Christians we need to pray but we also need to believe in hard work; hard work that builds and edifies the body of Christ. Yes, the Bible says, Pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17) but the Word of God never prescribes prayer for every problem we face in life.
If that was the case, Paul would have said to Timothy something like this: Train yourself up to be godly by praying hard.
Are you serious?
That is like Jesus saying to us at the end, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, because you prayed hard.”
When we need to sit and learn, we need to sit and learn. We can’t replace learning by “praying hard.” When we need to put what we’ve learned into practice, we need to do it. When we need to go and seek counseling from others, we need to walk on our feet and seek counseling from people who speak the truth of God into our lives. We can’t just sit there and say to ourselves, “I need to pray hard,” or, listen to people who advise us to pray hard.
You see, our long held wrong and unbiblical system of beliefs, wrong and destructive patterns of thoughts can’t be broken by praying hard but by sitting and letting the truth of God sink into our hearts, minds, bones and marrows. We also need to literally copy the lifestyle of others who have godly, praiseworthy and honorable lifestyles, characteristics and habits. That is why Paul said, imitate me (1 Corinthians 4:16 & 11:1); he also said, whatever you’ve seen in me, put it in practice (Philippians 4:9). He didn’t say, Pray hard so that my lifestyle will be transferred to you like a flu.
Some people live with their problems year after year because they think that if they fast and pray a little harder, they can find solution to their problems and unfortunately these same people have been told by others to do just that. So, they are prisoners of problems that shouldn’t be in their lives in the first place.
This is my message for today then: Let’s pray always about everything as the Bible commands us to do (Philippians 4:6); but let’s also learn to roll up our sleeves and get our feet and hands dirty as we get to work where work is needed. Sure, it gets us “dirty” (at least emotionally) to go to someone and confess our sins and tell them our secrets and struggles and seek their help; but that is where we find our healing (James 5:16). As we humble ourselves in that way, God steps in and does the rest of the healing work only He can bring in our lives. Otherwise, if we continue believing that praying hard is the solution for all our problems, we may end up becoming delusional to the point of denying the power of prayer and saying, “God doesn’t hear our prayers.” ///