This is the Truth Network. Encouraging Prayer. God offers an open invitation for His people to talk with Him at any time about anything. On Encouraging Prayer, Dr. James Banks, author of the bestselling Prayers for Prodigals and many other books on prayer, provides weekly biblical insight to help you learn to love to pray. And now, here's James. The Christian Car Guy thing. Shift gears.
Do something different so that we can step into a new place with Him, a better place we can step up. And it's going to be fun, James. Yeah. You know, Robbie, the other day I was thinking about how much I reach for my cell phone. And I don't know if you've ever done that. Have you ever run a check on your cell phone for how much screen time you spend? No, it does that whether I like it to or not. Oh my gosh.
Yeah. Because, you know, it helps you to realize, okay, I'm spending this much time on this app and this much time on social media. And when you realize how much time starts to add up on that, just from that quick looking at it, it's like, hmm, maybe I need to change this a bit, you know. And so I got to thinking, what if we could replace the amount of time that we do that glancing at our phone with some prayer? You know, okay, I understand maybe we're not going to do this all the time.
I mean, cell phones are a useful tool. But we know we need to pray more and we know that's an even more useful tool. And so, you know, just being able to say, okay, instead of reaching, I'm going to pray. Do you think you could do that? That's a nice trigger actually because, you know, usually the reason I reach for my cell phone is I have a question.
I'm going to ask Google or I'm going to get a phone number. I'm going to do something, you know, and what a neat trigger to say, oh God, before I do that, is there something that would be a better use of my time than finding out about this situation on Facebook or finding out about this email or whatever. It's a nice thing because obviously, you know, I've heard this this week that if we run for the world, it goes backwards. But if we run towards God, the world chases after us.
And it seems like I'd much rather be in that second place than the first. Yeah, it's interesting. We become addicted to news cycles, for example. We want to find out what's going on, what's going to happen next. And what is that doing to our spirits?
I think that's a question that we need to ask. And recently I've been reading another book by John Eldredge, which is his new book, Experience Jesus Really. And just that first chapter of the book got me in one particular place where he talks about, are you a disciple of Jesus or a disciple of the internet? Because, you know, that's what disciples do. They sit at the feet of someone and learn from them. And I thought, uh oh, you know, comparatively speaking, how much time?
How much time? And you think of the concept of watching and listening and kind of looking, you know, really seeking. That's what we're doing when we're doing an internet search. And so as I'm reading this, I thought, okay, okay, well, I know I need to pray. I know I need to spend time with Jesus this morning. And I'm going to do that, but I've already done my Bible reading and done some devotional reading and all I have left is my list to pray.
Lord, do you really want me to pray my list? It's boring. I'm just being honest. We have mornings like that. Oh, I do. I mean, yeah, like I resemble that remark like this morning. So this morning, or that morning, I thought, yeah, I need to pray my list because God doesn't do instant gratification in the same way that I do instant gratification. Now, of course, God is able to do anything, but waiting on God, being with him in prayer is not like looking on something on a cell phone or on the internet. You know, you might not get that result so quickly.
And that's one of the points that Eldritch makes in his book. And so I just start praying the list. But the interesting thing that happened as I did was there was peace that came. There was that sense of, oh, you know, here's the presence of God that I didn't expect. And it's just because I decided to discipline myself to sit before him. And yes, I have these requests, but I'm still sitting before him and going through them with him.
I'm kind of doing the work of prayer, and we don't tend to think of peace coming as a result of work. But it does sometimes, too. And it certainly did for me in that moment. Do you ever have that happen to you? Again, this morning, and it was like you read my book or something. That happens to me a lot because I have a significant, like any pastor would, I have a significant list.
And it does seem like, man, do we want it. But then all of a sudden, exactly like you say, there's a sense of, we need to meet together here, Robbie. These people are really, really important.
They're under your care, you know, to some extent. And you know, we're working on it together. And if we don't work on it together, it's not getting worked on.
And of course, this isn't just about praying lists. This is just about doing the work, about seeking, so that we do find. And again, we have to recognize that being with Jesus means, I think of a great quote from the hymn writer Frederick Faber who says, we must wait for God. We must wait in the wind and wet. We must wait in the cold and darkness. It goes something like that. Because he does not come to those who do not wait.
He does not go their road. And so, you know, I think that that it's helpful to just turn that reaching for the cell phone into a prayer. And, you know, the two words that come to mind are stop that. So, Lord, help me. Help me to depend more on you than I do on this. Help me to be more dependent on you. That's beautiful.
That's a great time to practice that. Shall I pray? Let's pray that we can do this and that God will show us how.
Lord, thank you. Thank you for this encouragement today, Joe. Lord, I thank you for James's insight. And I pray that you would help us. Help us to put you in that place where we have other things we're leaning on. Help us to lean on you, especially as the phone may trigger us this idea of turning to you and saying, Lord, what do you think about this?
What would be the best thing I can do in this situation before I do anything else? Help us to lean on you, Lord. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website, jamesbanks.org, or by visiting Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina. May God bless you and encourage you as you pray.
