You
probably know what it's like. I’m on the phone with our internet and email
provider.
“Your
email has been shut down because of fraudulent activity,” she says.
“How
soon will it be restored?” I ask.
“Forty-eight
to seventy-two hours,” she responds.
Big
sigh on my end. “You’re kidding?”
“I’m
afraid not. I’ll send you a form to fill out, and then we’ll investigate.”
In
other words, I have to prove my own identity.
I
hang up the phone and try to remind myself that it wasn’t that long ago, we thought nothing of waiting two or three days for a letter to arrive.
We didn’t know anything else. But now, this cyber thing has taken over, and it
seems we can’t go ten minutes without it.
All
I can do now is fill out the form and wait.
In
reflecting on this, I’m reminded of a form of communication in which there is
never a glitch or a fraud alert. It is instantaneously
received and always attended.
And
yet, so often we fail to use it. In fact, many times, we will turn to something
far less effective.
Of
course, I’m talking about prayer. We have a need, and we’ll phone a friend,
call a relative, or post on social media. All before we bow our own heads. We’ll
talk about prayer and ask someone else to pray, and yet we still haven’t done
so ourselves.
The
apostle Paul in writing to Romans said, “. . . be constant in prayer” (Romans
12:12).
When
you look up that word constant in the original language, some of the shades of
meaning are these: adhere to, be devoted to, be steadfastly attentive to, give
unremitting care to, continue all the time, persevere, and be in constant
readiness. Those definitions establish a pretty high benchmark for the life of
prayer. But A.W. Tozer puts it simply, “The key to prayer is simply praying.”
That’s
it. Just doing it.
May we all find that constancy in prayer the apostle encouraged and be thankful it is not email dependent.