When you examine the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, you find a very important principle. Before He set out to preach, He went off by Himself and prayed (Mark 1:35). It all starts with prayer. Whatever it is you desire to do, don’t do it unless you have first spent time on your knees with your Creator. If it was necessary for Jesus, how much more necessary is it for us?
Jesus, being God Himself, knew He needed to spend time with the Father before embarking on His mission. Do you think you are better equipped to deal with what is before you than the Son of God was? Our feet should not hit the floor, a word should not leave our lips, and our hands should find nothing to do until we have first bathed our souls in prayer.
I believe prayer should begin as soon as we wake in the morning. None of us knows what the day ahead of us will bring. But we know we will need God’s power, grace, and mercy to get through it because we can do nothing without Him (John 15:5). We have our plans, but Satan and the world have ideas of their own. While we do have control over our actions and responses, we have no control over outcomes. Therefore, surviving each day is only by God’s mercy. Based on this knowledge alone, you can see how important it is to pray before dropping our feet from the bed.
Unless it all starts with prayer, our interactions with others are not going to be honoring to God. We are selfish, opinionated, impatient, and more often than not quite boorish. Welcome to your life in a fallen world. If you are married, remember Paul’s commands on marriage in Ephesians 5:22-33. Husbands are to regard their wives as Christ regards the Church. Wives are to respect their husbands as they do Christ. Our every word and action should be to build up the other, not to tear them down (Ephesians 4:29). Unless we plead with the Lord for His grace here, none of us stands a chance.
And what of our grand plans? Oh, we are a dreaming lot, are we not? We tell everyone how we’re going to go here and there and do this and that, but none of it will happen unless God allows it. Knowing this, it only makes sense that we first spend time in prayer seeking His will and submitting ourselves to His guidance. Unless the Lord wills what we are planning, it will most certainly crumble and crash down around us (James 4:13–15).
It all starts with prayer. Before beginning your day, ask the Lord to help you glorify Him in everything you think, say and do. I don’t want to even think a thought that is dishonoring to God, so I need Him to take every evil thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). My mouth is too quick to speak, so I pray that He will set a guard over my lips (Psalm 141:3). And oh, my feet are so swift to do evil (Proverbs 6:16-19). Father, keep me from ever straying from your ways (Psalm 119:10), mark my path and keep my feet straight upon it (Psalm 119:105; Proverbs 3:5-6). Help me love others as you love them and see every individual as having unsurpassable worth, as one created in Your image (Genesis 1:27; John 13:34-35). Help me live this day for You and You alone. A day well spent and a life well lived—it all starts with prayer.