How to Share Your FaithSample

Our Best Kept Secret

Tyler Staton writes, “…the modern church’s best-kept secret is this: we believe in productivity, not prayer. We believe in solid programs, above-average teaching, and yet another worship album release…the church’s underground atheism in our time is that we will busy ourselves with almost anything except prayer.”[1]

I built a playhouse because my daughters asked me to. They worked with me, sometimes slowing me down (have you taught a 5-year-old to use a drill lately?). But it wouldn’t have been built at all if they hadn’t asked.

I was delighted to help them do what they couldn’t do without me.

This week is about sharing our faith. We’re diving deep and getting practical. Prayer encompasses both. More importantly, prayer is essential because seeing friends and enemies saved is more beyond us than building that playhouse was beyond my daughters.

The Bible describes salvation as moving from death to life. Paul writes that the Colossians were “rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the kingdom of the Son he loves…” (Colossians 3:13).

I know we men love to DIY but does salvation sound like something you and I can pull off after watching a few YouTube videos?

Instead, might we ask our Father to build His kingdom and stick close to Him while He does it?

If we want to see a revival in our churches where the lost are found, the broken are healed, the greedy get generous, the lonely find family, and those addicted and enslaved are set free, we need God to move in power.

We need Him to move us; we can be half-hearted and distracted men.

We need Him to move in them; this work is beyond our pay grade.

To grow in sharing our faith, we need to recover a heart for a culture of prayer. Many of our churches have prayer meetings that are poorly attended and often seem powerless.

Join them and persevere.

Will you withdraw regularly to pray like Jesus? (Luke 5:16)

Prayer: “Lord, increase my desire and love to pray. I need Your help. Lord, please reintroduce Yourself to (Insert names you hope to see healed and saved) today. Let them see Your greatness, glory, and love. Show me how I can be part of Your work in their life. Move in power, Lord! Amen.”

Reflection: Reflect on Tyler Staton’s words at the beginning of this article. Make a brutally honest list of the reasons so few Christians pray, and then ask God what He thinks of those reasons. Then read Acts 4 for inspiration and note what the believers do and don’t pray for.

[1] Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools by Tyler Staton. Location 3329.