Prayer as Energy for Our Work

Perspective gives us a “big picture” of the work to be done and planning breaks down major projects into manageable tasks. Together, then, perspective and planning bring our diverse energies into high-intensity focus. In the oft-quoted Scripture, we say “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much” (James 5:16). This passage is more than a prooftext for the results of prayer. We may miss the point that effective and fervent are adjectives describing the nature of prayer. Without violence to the text, we might also describe the prayer that avails much as focused and energized. When we do, our understanding of the verse is assisted by the laws of physics. Whenever light or heat is focused with high intensity, the results can be a laser beam that has power to pierce steel or a nuclear bomb that can obliterate cities. Wind that is focused has similar energy. When a low-pressure frontal system penetrates a high-pressure area, the power of the wind at the point of penetration has tornado force.

Pinpoint prayer has the same power. When we prepare for our daily work through the discipline of prayer, all of our energies are focused upon the task and energized by the power of concentration. Eastern gurus, New Age cultists, and motivational therapists have tried to capitalize on this principle of prayer through such techniques as meditation, visioning, and centering. Certainly they have succeeded from the human standpoint, because the principle is psychological as well as spiritual. Yet they are limited to the natural dimensions of the practice. Only prayer which focuses body, mind, and soul on God, and submits to His will, has the energy of divine and human power which can move mountains and make miracles.

When we fail to pray, however, our perspective for work narrows. Our plans for work give way to chaos and our energy for work is drained. We need to brood over our daily tasks with focused and energized prayer if we want our work to be creative.

Experience has taught me that I can miss my nightly jogging for three days before I notice personal fatigue, muscular regression, and loss of body tone. The discipline of prayer, however, does not afford me the same luxury, for there is a direct and immediate effect between my life of prayer and my life of work. If I miss my solitude in prayer, either in the morning or evening, my outlook changes, my energy lags, and my work suffers.

None of us can afford to begin our daily work without brooding time in prayer. The Creation story tells us why. Without this brooding time in the presence of God to know the mind of the Spirit and the Word of Christ, our daily work will be like the heavens and the earth in the beginning – dark, empty, and chaotic.