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Pray First – Develop a Prayer Reflex

Mar 26, 2024 | Prayer

Whether you encounter good or bad, pray first to our almighty and loving God!I want to continue talking about putting God first. You can find links to the other parts of this series at the end of this post.

Today’s post focuses on putting God first by developing a “prayer reflex.” A reflex is “an automatic action that your body does in response to something.” When the doctor taps your knee with a small hammer, you don’t think about kicking your leg; it happens automatically.

In similar fashion, a “prayer reflex” is when we automatically pray first to God when something, either negative or positive, happens to us. Prayer should be our first response, not an afterthought.

If something negative happens, we put God first by automatically calling on Him for help, direction, strength, or whatever we need to handle the problem. For example, if you lose your job, instead of worrying, your prayer reflex should immediately kick in and prompt you to pray first and ask God to help you find another job. Philippians 4:6 tells us, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

If something positive happens, we should not take the credit for ourselves or consider what happened to be luck or chance. Instead, let us put God first by automatically offering thanksgiving to Him for His blessings, protection, and power. For instance, if you take a physical exam and the doctor tells you everything looks good, your prayer reflex should immediately kick in and you should pray first to thank God for your health and strength. Psalm 107:1 says, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.” So whether we encounter good or bad, let our first response be a prayer of petition, praise, or thanksgiving to our almighty and loving God!

What is your first response when something, either good or bad, happens to you? Tell me about it in the comments.

Links to the other parts in this series:

Take Time to Pray

Mar 12, 2024 | Prayer

If God is first in our lives, we should take time to pray to Him every day.Earlier in this series on putting God first, I talked about the importance of spending time with God in two areas: Bible study and prayer. I discussed Bible study in previous posts. If you missed any of those posts, see the links below. Today, I want to talk about prayer.

I don’t think I need to tell you that you should pray because you already know that. But, despite our good intentions, we sometimes neglect prayer because we allow other things to distract us or have higher priority. If God is first in our lives, we should make a commitment to spend time with Him in prayer every day. We demonstrate that prayer is important to us when we make time to do it. If we don’t make time to pray, then we must ask ourselves if prayer is really important to us. (more…)