The 1st Lesson

1. Hard work, because there is no lion in the street (Proverbs 22) and even if there is we may be called to slay it with our bare hands like David or sit amongst them like Daniel or tame it like the Ringling Brothers. Prayer is hard work. There is no formula or easy way around it – it requires commitment both to prayer and to being in right relationship with God – both of these require a lot of work, over and over again. Last summer I spent a week in Western Canada ministering with my parents at “Bush Camp”, our annual outreach to the children of our Native community. An old friend of the family and respected man of the community, Sam Adolph, was there teaching children how to make drums and other Native crafts. I sought him out to have a drum made so that I could give it to George and Drena as a gift for giving me this year with them. Next time I will be careful what I ask for, because as I discovered, the brunt of the work happened to be skinning the fat, the extra skin and the hair off of the hide to make this wonderful idea of a drum. After an hour of this agonizing, back wrenching work, I had formulated many different ways to make this job easier in my head and I share them with Sam. With a wise grin and a slow start he said, “You know Nathan… I’ve tried every trick in the book and none of them work better than elbow grease. That’s all it is, elbow grease” And then he let out a reassuring chuckle. Something told me, he knew what he was talking about. The famous of author of “Orthodoxy”, G.K. Chesterton shared his thoughts about “elbow grease” by stating, “The Christian ideal has not been found tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried”. Paul Little has said, “The most crucial battle in our lives is the continuing one of securing enough time alone in the presence of God. Our spiritual vigor and vitality in everything else depend on the outcome of this battle.” I finish this point with a quote from John Stott - “The thing I know will give me the deepest joy – namely, to be alone and unhurried in the presence of God, aware of His presence, my heart open to worship Him – is often the thing I least want to do.” The fact that it is just a lot of hard work makes it easier to embrace because I know that I don’t have to wait for the magic formula to hit me. It’s not that there is something necessarily wrong with me, I just need to keep at it and work hard. There’s freedom in that – to just go for it.