Pet Peeves

We all have our pet peeves. You know what I mean. It is that little something that really irritates us. Everyone has at least one. Most of us have several. They range from the serious to the ridiculous, from the important to the trivial. There is no end of pet peeves in this world. A couple of years ago I asked some Christian brothers on an internet forum to list their top three pet peeves. Here are a few examples:

    Squeezing the toothpaste from the middle.
    Wearing a cowboy hat and tennis shoes or cowboy boots and short pants.
    Trite sayings on bumper stickers, such as “No Intolerance Allowed”.
    People who move to a new community and immediately compare everything to their former place of residence.
    Drivers who pay no attention to the road because they are talking on their cell phones.
    Toilet paper hung “upside down” in the bathroom.
    There were many more, but you get the idea.

In spite of the proliferation of pet peeves, I have one that falls into the important category. It drives me crazy when I ask someone for prayer and they respond with advice. Yes, they pray as well, but before they have a chance to pray, they are offering their solution to the problem. I don’t need their solution to the problem. I need God’s solution to the problem. I know they mean well, but their actions speak volumes about their view of God and prayer.

This is even common among mature believers who understand the power of God and his sovereignty. I even find myself doing it at times.In spite of all our experience that says God answers prayers and that he desires to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, we still instinctively seek human answers to spiritual problems. How shortsighted we are! Only God can change a man’s heart. Only God can effectively defeat the enemy in our lives. Only God can truly heal our illness and lift our spirits. True, there is a time for the counsel of godly men, but it does not replace the fervent prayers of those same godly men. God doesn’t need any suggestions from us. He already has the answer. We need only ask him for it.

Grace-ometer

I ran across this quote by Charles Spurgeon and want to share it. This quote expresses my understanding of God, his people, and his church quite accurately.

The condition of the church may be very accurately gauged by its prayer meetings. So is the prayer meeting a grace-ometer, and from it we may judge of the amount of divine working among a people. If God be near a church, it must pray. And if he be not there, one of the first tokens of his absence will be a slothfulness in prayer.