Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
So what brought you to this blog today? What were you doing 10 minutes before you clicked on this link and started reading these words? Do you have a sense for why you were doing that task or thinking those thoughts?
Most of the time we can’t answer questions like this with much clarity or definitiveness. Instead we find ourselves coasting through the day letting the world act on us. The events of the day happen and we respond. Sometimes out of self-defense and other times out of sheer exhaustion.
We have been writing about being On Call in Culture for the past few months and there is a great community of people growing up around that idea. But as we are On Call in Culture are we proactively thinking about what God’s call is for us on any given day?
It would be easy to sanctify every act as part of God’s Common Grace for this world without asking the hard questions about what God would really think of our daily activities. Are we truly blessing the world or is the blessing really just for ourselves?
That is where prayer comes in. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 challenges us to live in joy as we pray continually. In that posture God’s will becomes clear and His calling on our lives for that day . . . hour . . . minute become clear.
In his devotional, The Way, the famous missionary and evangelist E. Stanley Jones writes of a surgeon who integrates prayer into his work. He tells the story this way, “Someone, surprised at a famous surgeon pausing to pray as he began an operation, asked about the habit. His reply: ‘When I am operating I feel the presence of God so real that I cannot tell where His skill ends and mine begins.’ There was no ending and no beginning. They were one.” (pg. 213)
Are you praying about what you are doing? Are you asking God if the activity of the hour is honoring to Him and a blessing to the world? Maybe that product you are pitching is the wrong one for the customer. Is it possible that the treatment you just prescribed is the easy way to go but not what the patient really needs?
How will you know? We must be praying as we live On Call in Culture. No other posture will allow us to truly bless this world as agents of our Savior.
