Prayer is Preparation

The other day, I was talking with a friend between jobs and thinking about how to prepare for the next step. It took me back to a time I had to take the GRE — and that painful reminder of the need for preparation.

The GRE is one of those standardized exams replete with idiosyncratic math problems quite different from what I do day-to-day. A practice test made the point excruciatingly clear.

So many formulas and procedures I might have taken for granted in high school had long grown rusty in my mind. It showed. There was only one thing to do: prepare.

As school kids, we may not think much about how we’re “preparing.” We’re forced to do the work and think, “Well, why do I have to do all this?” as we do. Relearning it was different: I had a destination in mind, so preparation felt like a refreshing step toward my goal.

God calls us to preparation, too, but often we want to ask “why.” Yet He tells us: we live in an in-between time while we wait for Jesus’s return and during that time, God wants us to use our lives as seasons of preparation and subsequent action. We may sometimes get stuck in preparation, but a significant risk for us as Christians today is that we don’t bother preparing at all.

In the time after the Resurrection, Acts 1 tells us the disciples had a period of preparation before they went full bore ahead with starting the church. Preaching through that chapter after Easter, I’ve been struck: if they needed that time after spending years with Jesus Himself, how much do we need it?

So we need preparation and we also need to pay attention to what kind. My math-related prep time wouldn’t have been effective if I’d spent it studying grammar. Spiritual preparation needs to be focused on where God points out, too.

First, we see that a key part of preparation is preparation in being together. Today, many people think gathering together as a church is old-fashioned, even if they are sympathetic to being “spiritual.” But actually praying and studying with others seeking God isn’t extracurricular: it’s at the heart of preparing for the destination God wants for us.

God’s calling is for us to love people. Where better to start than with a group of people likewise seeking to understand God’s will for their lives?

In that first chapter of Acts, we see a gathering of the disciples who abandoned Jesus before later returning, the broader group of disciples and even Jesus’s family. All of them had failed Jesus in some way. All probably annoyed each other in a whole bunch of ways. But, now they understood that part of following Jesus is loving the people He loves.

Amidst all this, there weren’t little rooms of important disciples, lesser disciples, Jesus’s family, the VIPs, and so on. Instead, after Jesus ascends into heaven, the story is of one group gathered together, praying together and being together. Why? Because they were united in following Jesus, no matter how messed up any of them were.

Many people say they want to be just like the early church, but then they fight and cause division — even among Christians — over things that aren’t at the heart of following Jesus. If we want to be like the early church, we first need to follow that early church’s example. To be together following the Savior. It is as essential to right living as memorizing formulas are to scoring well on a standardized math test.

There’s a second key preparation that goes along with the first. The early Christians didn’t just talk about preparation; they devoted themselves to prayer together. The model of the early church was unity and prayer. They weren’t just hanging out — they seriously prepared together. They drilled those formulae.

We should do the same.

Prayer is not inaction or some sort of pre-preparation. It’s action through confidence in God. We need rid ourselves of the idea that prayer is less than action.

Our culture mocks prayer, especially when tragedies happen and people say, “We’re praying for you.” We who are Christians sometimes start to believe the scorn and we’ve also helped earn it. We say those words about prayer and then often fail to actually pray, much less be guided to what’s next through prayer.

That’s not how prayer should be. My church and its sister ministry, FaithTree, put on prayer events called “Online Community Prayer Walks” twice a year for believers around the world. One just took place yesterday. I love those prayer walk days because they’re an indescribably wonderful experience of people from all around the world coming and seriously praying. Together.

This is no lip service, but action.

When prayer is action, and it’s powerful. I always feel a little sad after those days conclude, but also filled with appreciation that prayer doesn’t stop at “Amen.” Times of prayer encourage us and focus us on what’s ahead. God knows what He’s doing when he calls us to pray together.

It took a couple of months of preparation for that standardized exam, but I got there. I took the test and accomplished what I needed to. How does that fit into the life preparation God calls us to?

If we want to be used by God in this world, then we need to start with prayer and growing together with others seeking Him. This is a life-long prep, not a couple of month crash course, but the good news is it is more of an internship than mere study session.

Focused like Jesus’s followers were in Acts 1, these things are action. As we do what God calls us to do, we can’t hold it in. In genuine prayer together with other believers, we find ourselves inextricably pushed to actually love and serve the world.

That’s the two millennia long preparation story that hasn’t failed yet. And won’t.

Based on Tim’s Monday, May 19 sermon broadcast on the Steadfast livestream. You can find the full message here.