Devout Christians are concerned about their relationship with God. Because so vital a matter seems ephemeral to most persons, we seek careful instruction on how to carry through in thought and deed on cultivating that relationship. When I committed my life to Christ in 1940, I soon learned of a fellow about four or five years older than I was who devoted his time to hours of prayer each day. I immediately felt great admiration for him, and talked with him. Everything I said was registered to him as a matter of prayer. He was soft-spoken, and seemed other worldly to me. He was one member of a devout and highly respected family in the church, a family from which several persons had entered Christian life ministry at home or abroad. It all seemed perfect to me in my youthful idealism about my own experience as a Christian. I went off to school, far away, but the next I heard of him he had dropped out from the church, and abandoned his self-imposed devotional life. I do not know if he abandoned his faith. I lost track of him, but I heard a casual report. After more than seven decades since that period, I have felt some melancholy about that fine young man, whose life may have been marred by the loss of balanced context, and understanding about that context (frame of his own personal reference). I have learned that if one is called to a special spiritual regimen, he is given a gift for it, and there is a way to weave it into natural schedule. Even spirituality tends to be fitting to natural life, as was that of the Apostles.
A sign of maturity in an individual is the ability to include everything needed for mortal life and its relationships, with God and persons. This is balance. It sounds simple, but it isn’t. A child is so taken with the activity he likes to engage that he doesn’t give thought or energy to the realities attending his life. He doesn’t do the money-making, cooking, cleaning, shopping, and carrying through of the matters related to daily living. He or she has the energy for the duties, but hasn’t the wisdom or strength to balance all factors of living. Even Jesus was arrested in his activity when he saw his disciples wearied by the constant attention to ministry, and he canceled a few meetings so to take them aside for recuperation and rest. If we followed the Apostle Paul in his daily life, we would find the Apostle, perhaps at prayer, perhaps sewing a tent, perhaps engaged in contracting for five tents for this or that businessman in the market place, perhaps buying the day’s produce for his traveling party (likely listing to Timothy the produce he wanted for their repast), perhaps preaching on Mars Hill. The point is that Paul was engaged in all of life. Abraham could not have had all those sheep without time for business, as well as time for prayer and exchange with God. Job was godly, even when he was speaking on ordinary matters with the town council that admired him highly. So the story may be extended. We were created for an earthly transition for a divine future.
Do I believe that a person might give all of life to prayer? Certainly, but it ought to be arranged in a way that protects the person from the loss of natural reality. Someone must attend to matters for the specialist. Catholic Christians establish prayer centers where monks or nuns devoted to prayer may be ensconced. They tend to forego natural interests so that they may accent a special value. Even then they are usually assigned the modest chores of life in the closed community so to get the work done and keep a balance for reality. There is a proper humility in it all, not attended by a better-than-thou spirit. Information about these persons, men and women, commends them. The devout among the community laypersons usually take responsibility for the necessaries of making a living for those who give themselves as witness to the importance of a spiritual/physical mission commitment. At the time of the birth of Jesus, a man, Simeon, and woman, Anna, (Luke 2), devoted to spiritual pursuits, were singled out to recognize the Christ child. They were given the gift of time-sacrifice, and had the personal devotion, to dedicate full time to prayer. Their age commended them to the extended devotion. Prayer likely is the first duty of aged Christians. It is energy efficient, and has a way of making the person feel worth in a world that attaches much value to other competencies. It is ministry, and in degree may be measured for some. Populations are generalists. Prayer is usual, a part of every Christian’s life. Remember, thanksgiving is prayer. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020