When Prayer is the First Resort

I remember quite vividly, in the Fall of 2020, the moment my doctor diagnosed me with colon cancer. Moments immediately after my initial shock, my heart went directly to the song “Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble. Be with me, Lord, I pray,” from Psalm 91. Even though in the text I asked the Lord to be with me, what I was really praying is that, amid this shocking news, “I pray that I, myself, would be with the Lord during this time of trouble.” See, the Lord is always with us. Whether or not we recognize his presence among us all the time is another story.

We pray to God when we need something, when things go awry. When things go well for us, we may not necessarily have to think about God. But what if we think about God when things do go well and when things do not go so well? What if prayer is always the first resort? What if our response when good things happen is “Praise God!”? And what if our response to bad news is “God help us!”? What if prayer is both the first resort and the last resort? How would that make our life truly God-centered?

I believe that God is always thinking about me/us, because the moment God stops thinking about me/us, I/we would cease to exist. It is this attitude that I see life—and everything in it--as a gift which God continually gives each one of us:

God be in my head and in my understanding. God be in my eyes and in my looking. God be in my mouth and in my speaking. God be in my heart. God be at my end and my beginning and always in between.

I invite your engagement in this conversation. Email me, please. Let me hear from you!

And, after finally surrendering to God’s will for me, my surgery was a success. I did not need any radiation or chemotherapy afterwards … just Tylenol for pain. I’ve been cancer-free since then. Praise God!

My cancer was the best thing to happen to me in my prayer life.