This being the National Day of Prayer, I was doing a little reflecting this week, and thinking back to what it means to be in prayer. Most people desire a deeper “prayer” life, we’ve all heard testimonies of those that are the prayer warriors and spend countless hours in their prayer closets or rooms having deep conversations with the Lord. For you when you think of the prayer life it may be the desire to have this, or even just something a little more in depth than where you are today.  

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It is human nature to always desire more of what you already have. For me, as a father of 6, it is a struggle most days to find what that prayer life looks like. It shifts, comes, and goes in seasons, some weeks I can spend plenty of time in prayer, and unfortunately others the struggle is real. One verse that is always encouraging to me is in 1 Thess. 5 “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”  To me “pray without ceasing” is more of a constant conversation. We have been programmed to believe that God may only hear our prayers if we are on our knees, in a dark room, with the right worship music playing, if I have done everything exactly as I am supposed to. God will not hear my prayers because I lost my temper this morning, my wife and I had a disagreement last night, so my prayers will not be heard today.  

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We view prayer/communication with God as a legalistic approach. If I achieve this level of perfection, then my prayers will be heard. The beautiful thing about the Christian walk to me, is that we will never achieve any level of perfection or obedience. “For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.” Romans 3:23.  

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In the end, one preferred method for me, is the pray without ceasing. It is like constant communication. I was reminded this week of when my father passed away. My sisters, my family, and some other extended family had all met at a hotel outside of Little Rock. We went to dinner the night before and were spending time together. The plan was for the next morning, I would get up and drive to the crematorium, to pick up my father’s ashes. I would then drive to the small cemetery two hours away and meet the family to distribute my father’s ashes at the gravesite of my grandfather.  

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The night before, as I was driving, I remember just praying as I drove to the Hotel to meet the family. My prayer was basically, “Lord, I don’t know how I’m going to do this tomorrow. I really am dreading having to pick my father’s ashes up, it is going to be so hard to carry his ashes out of the crematorium and put them in my truck. I do not want to carry them to the truck, then drive 2 hours in complete silence. Then I really do not want to get them out of my truck and carry them in the cemetery. It was so difficult to me processing this day. Although, I knew that this was not my father, there still was a finality to it all. I felt like when I carried his ashes to the cemetery it would be abandoning him there and leaving him. My life would be moving on, without him. I felt guilty in a sense.  

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That morning, the family was sitting there eating breakfast, and my son Warnock who was six years old at the time, looked at me and asked “Dad, can I ride with you to pick up Granddaddy?” Absolutely son, first answer to prayer. We arrive at the crematorium and sit there at the table in the empty room as we wait for the guy to retrieve my father’s ashes. As we sit there, I watch as the guy walks towards me, he has the box of remains in one hand, and some paperwork in the other. He sits the box down on the table, and then gives me the paperwork, to sign. As I am looking through the paperwork, I notice that Warnock has slid the box of remains over in front of him. When I finished the paperwork and it is time to leave, I have a big lump in my throat, because the final leg of my journey with my dad is now beginning.  

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“Hey dad, do you care if I carry Granddaddy to the truck?” here was my son, doing the second task that I did not want to do that morning and was dreading. I watch as my son, carries the box of remains across the parking lot, waits on me to unlock his door and then he climbs into his booster seat and sits the box next to him in the middle of the back seat. Almost relieved that I would not have this box staring at me for the next two hours. 

 

Now we start the truck up, the dreaded two-hour drive, where I am left with all my thoughts, regrets, sadness. No doubt, it will be an emotional drive. My dad and I had driven the road from Little Rock to his hometown many times. Usually, it was to head down for a weekend of deer hunting or seeing family. Today it was to say our last goodbyes, I really had not had time to process his loss over the last week, and I was completely dreading this two-hour drive, I suppose in part, because it would be the first time in a week that I would be forced to be silent and think about the weight of everything happening.  

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We pull out of the parking lot, and I hear a voice in the back “Hey dad, what are we going to talk about on the way to the cemetery?” I replied, “your pick son.” My six-year-old then pipes up from behind me, “Let’s talk about dinosaurs, and we can talk about Jurassic Park, and the differences between the two Jurassic Park movies.” My son would spend the next two hours sharing his expertise on dinosaurs, and all things critiqued about the Jurassic Park movies, that only a grieving father that did not want to sit with his silence could appreciate. If you know my son, you know that he is passionate about movies and dinosaurs. He told me everything he knew about dinosaurs on that two-hour drive, and I was thankful. Yet a third answered prayer.  

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Finally, we make it to the Cemetery, my sisters, aunts, and wife and kids have all pulled in ahead of me. We pull into the old country cemetery. It is located next to golf course, my grandfather chose this plot, b/c he wanted to be able to waive at his friends as they came around the ninth tee. The grass is grown up, it had been more than 15 years since I had visited this same place with my own father to pay respects to his dad that had passed too soon. I put the truck in park, I see my family begin to emerge from their vehicles, as I sit there in silence. Come to think of it, this was the first 5 seconds of silence I had since pulling out of the crematorium parking lot.  

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My son, still sitting in the back, unbuckles his seatbelt. He leans forward over my seat, and says “Hey dad, do you mind if I carry Granddaddy to the grave?” I look back at him and reply “Absolutely not son, I’d love it if you did this.” It would be later that evening on the three-hour drive across South Arkansas that I replayed the day's events in my mind. Here I was processing the loss and grief from my father’s passing, and in a moment, a very brief conversation with God, I had laid out all the things I was dreading about this last day with my father. Yet, here was my six-year-old son, stepping up, and taking each of the burdens and fears from me one by one. It was as if, God was saying, “I heard your prayers, don’t worry, I’ve got this all under control.” 

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So, as you pray, I just want to encourage you, there is no prayer too small or too large. It is written in 1 John 5:15 “And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.”  

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Be encouraged, we serve a living God, that loves us and wants to walk through life with us. There is nothing too small. So whether it happens in the midst of a 24-hour prayer fast, if you are praying at 5 am (because, we know that’s the best time for interaction with God), or even if it’s something as little as when you are driving in your car.  The Father hears your prayers.