I like funerals! I don’t mean I enjoy them. I mean that I approve of them. I came to that conclusion after burying a person without one yesterday. It was one of those cold, gloomy winter days where the clouds hung like a wet sponge over the earth. They seemed to be waiting for someone to reach up and squeeze the rain out of them. The wind cut to the bone as we stood on the hill of the cemetery. That sad occasion was made sadder still by the fact that no one was there except the funeral director and me. No flowers, no friends, and no family. Just us.
I thought to myself, “This is not right. A person deserves more than this. There should be a service. There should be flowers. There should be friends and family.” This is not the way it should be. Why are fune...
A minister who was conducting worship services in the White House quoted a maxim of Augustine: “I will work as if everything depended on me; I shall pray as if everything depended on God.”
Prayer and work naturally go together. Jesus said, “Men ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). Prayer is important but prayer is not a substitute for work; it is a desperate effort to work further and to be efficient beyond the range of one’s powers. It is not the lazy who are most inclined to prayer; those who pray most care most, and who, having worked hard, find it intolerable to be defeated.
While the Bible repeatedly urges us to pray, it also urges us to work. For example, it says, “Let us abound in the work of the Lord” and “Let us not be weary in well doing.” Work and prayer are an unbeatable combination. To live life at its best give both of them a prominent place in your life.