Deciding To Pray By Praying To Decide

Abraham Lincoln was once quoted about prayer by saying:

“I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day”

I often have remind myself when I am faced with the confusion of choice about the old hymn, Did You Think To Pray? Foolishly, I’ll wait till I have made up my mind to then go and ask for it from God. In all my debate and decision, I don’t factor in the Lord till the end. But why wait? The best decisions come when we let God make them.

Consider what Jesus did when he had a big decision to make. In Luke 6:12-13, we read:

“It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God. And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles”

What more important decision could Jesus have than whom he would appoint the task of spreading the Gospel, leading his Church, and being the witness to the world of his words? I can’t imagine the thinking and analyzing that must have gone on. Yet what did he spend the entire night before the appointing of the apostles doing? Praying.

Every one of us will have big (and some not so big) decisions to make in our lives, but there is no better way to start that any decision falling to our knees in prayer. I may not know what to do, but He does. I can’t see all the twists and turns in the road I am about take, but He can. Before I choose, would not the wisest thing be to turn to the one that sees all and know all?

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