. A device for saving people from
toil, struggle and responsibility by J.R. Miller. But we prayed
to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat,
Nehemiah 4.9. we are in danger of making prayer
a substitute for duty, or of trying to roll over on God the
burden of caring for us and doing things for us while we sit still
and do nothing. When we pray to be delivered
from temptation, we must keep out of the way of temptation
unless duty clearly calls us there. We must also guard against
temptation, resist the devil, and stand firm in obedience and
faith. When we ask God for our daily
bread, pleading the promise that we shall not lack, we must also
labor to earn God's bread and thus make it ours honestly. A lazy man came once and asked
for money, saying that he could not find bread for his family.
Neither can I, replied the industrious mechanic to whom he had applied. I am obliged to work for it. While we pray for health, we
must use the means to obtain it. While we ask for wisdom,
we must use our brains and think, searching for wisdom as for hidden
treasure. While we ask God to help us break
off a bad habit, we must also strive to overcome the habit.
Prayer is not merely a device for saving people from toil,
struggle, and responsibility. When there is no human power
adequate to the need, we may ask God to work without us, and
in some way He will help us. But ordinarily, we must do our
part, asking God to work in and through us, and to bless us through
faithful obedience. I labor, struggling with all
His energy, which so powerfully works in me. Colossians 1.29