Psalm 6
It’s survey time. Imagine you’ve just purchased something new that you’ve looked forward to. Maybe it’s a new piece of furniture or a phone or computer or an appliance. Say this item requires some assembly or some knowledge to begin using it. The item comes with a manual or instructions. I believe there are two types of people when it comes to manuals or instructions. Group 1 attempts assembly or using the product first. Then if they need the instruction manual they will consult. Group 2 reads the manual first. Then they attempt assembly. So which type of person are you? How many read first and assemble with confidence? How many assemble or play first and consider it a defeat if you have to consult the manual.
Now when it comes to something that has a pretty extensive manual, it’s probably good to read and learn the information in there. You gain knowledge about features you might know nothing about. But I think for most of us, a lot of things would have to come together for us to sit down and read through a manual. We’d need time, energy and have nothing else really pressing for us to actually do that. On the other hand, if something doesn’t work and all our efforts to fix it fail, we will make time to read the manual.
I think this is very similar to our prayer lives. If we don’t have a habit of prayer, we will likely pray only in a couple of situations. Situation 1 – when you feel like praying. Everything has come together perfectly so that you want to pray. You are well rested and maybe on a spiritual high. You have lots of time to think and maybe look out over a beautiful spot. You experience no interruptions, no distractions and have a deep desire to pray with lots of energy. I don’t know about you but that happens about once a year for me.
