Have you ever switched ingredients accidentally in a recipe? Have you ever measured out salt for the flour and flour for the salt? I think we can all agree that a pinch of flour and three cups of salt in a recipe for cookies would make a pretty nasty cookie!
If your Christian life was a cookie, what ingredient would prayer be? If we were honest, I think prayer would be like a "pinch of salt" in the recipe rather than "3 cups of flour". For me, it's so much easier to focus on strategy, leadership, mission, etc. But I know in my heart it's time to re-read the original recipe because all too often our cookies aren't turning out too great. As I read through the book of Mark, I see Jesus trying to reveal the true recipe God designed for us.
And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed." Mark 1:35
And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, "Why could we not cast it out?" And he said to them, "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer." (Mark 9:28-29)
And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seasts of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything thorugh the temple. And he was teaching them and sayng to them, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers. (Mark 11:15-17)
"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." Mark 11:24
I think Jesus was concerned because he saw a powerless people trying to accomplish God's mission. If I'm not mistaken, we believe in prayer WAY more than we actually spend time praying.
Reading about prayer, thinking about prayer, believing in prayer, watching other people in prayer - it's not the same as actual time spent in prayer. Let's get back to the original recipe. Let's put the priority of prayer where it should be, and see things happen that have been needing to happen for a long time. The world is overdue for a really tasty cookie!
