Just pray

https://odb.org/2025/11/19/just-pray

Psalm 6:4–9 (NIV): 4 Turn, LORD, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love. 5 Among the dead no one proclaims your name. Who praises you from the grave? 6 I am worn outs from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. 7 My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes. 8 Away from me, all you who do evil, for the Lord has heard my weeping. 9 The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer.

The freelance project wasn’t working out well. The clients were demanding what seemed to be the impossible, and I was stressed and discouraged. My first reaction was just to walk away from it, which would mean not getting paid for the work I’d done—and also eliminating the possibility of future projects with them. Then the thought came to me: Have you prayed to God yet?

Mentally slapping my forehead, I realized that I’d neglected to ask God for help! And so I prayed . . . and immediately felt better. Nothing had changed—the project remained challenging—but I felt peace wash over me. Now I knew I could rest in God: I’d just do whatever I could and leave the outcome to Him. (Leslie Koh, Our Daily Bread, 19th November 2025)

Sometimes, not always I believe, we get so engrossed in dealing with some issues that we forget that the Lord is right there beside us. Or because we believe that some issues are best resolved between men (meaning human beings) without spiritual intervention. We may think like that because those are not spiritual issues. Like if we face deadlocks in contractual clauses, we tend to just crack our heads to figure out a middle ground language or find arguments to argue our point of view. Of course, there are policy clauses that are beyond our pay grade and thus need to be escalated to higher management or even the Board.

But actually in the midst of all that, God is there in the equation. We should thus pray to commit the situation to the Lord. Maybe nothing actually changed after we prayed. Things appeared to look as bad. However, I believe God would have done something to the hearts of men involved in the transaction. The atmosphere could have become less tense and more friendly and conciliatory. Perhaps something that has been going on for 6 months will now be finally closed in 2 weeks. Ultimately there are always spiritual forces at work. Thus spiritual input in terms of prayer may change things. Not everything is as per what’s apparent in the natural.

I remember that a trait of one of the founding members of my church (now deceased) is his prayer life. He always prays and commit things to the Lord whenever there are difficulties. In other words, he take every opportunity to pray and commit things to the Lord. May His will be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

The message this morning is to pray, just pray when faced with hurdles or difficulties even if the issues are just issues between men. Jesus works in all situations. Take some time to pray, to call out to Him, even in desperation and although nothing appears to change, it has changed with our prayer. Trust God and then work through the issues. It will eventually be closed. Amen!