From Sacrifice To Privilege

I rise early, before the sun is up; I cry out for help and put my hope in your words. I stay awake through the night, thinking about your promise.

Psalm 119:147-148

For the practices that we know have effect, we will make the time. We have time for what matters to us.

Are you convinced that time spent focused on God makes a difference? If you are, then you will probably get up as early as necessary to have time with him before the day begins and will even focus on him as you wake through the night.

Though I have been teaching about a praying life—a continual flow of prayer—for most of my life, that praying life has to be nourished and undergirded by disciplined times of prayer.

The pursuit of any goal requires a narrowed focus. To hold fast to one goal means to dismiss many others. The pursuit of any goal demands a single-minded diligence.

The more you see the power of God released in response to your prayers, the more excitement you have about prayer. You life’s focus will be to see God work in every situation with tremendous power. You will welcome God’s purifying work because you know it is freeing you of encumbrances. Choosing to live a praying life—a life through which the power of God is free to flow—involves sacrifice. In this, it is no different from any other rock-solid commitment. Whatever you choose to pursue will require that you sacrifice something else. The key is this: if the goal is sufficiently attractive, the sacrifice necessary will be irrelevant. In fact, the more focused on your goal you are, the less you will perceive the requirements as “sacrifices.” What once seemed a sacrifice will soon feel like a privilege. What once was a duty will become a delight.

Father, create in me such a longing for you that sleep is no competition.

We must face the fact that many today are notoriously careless in their living. This attitude finds its way into the church. We have liberty, we have money, we live in comparative luxury. As a result, discipline practically has disappeared. What would a violin solo sound like if the strings on the musician’s instrument were all hanging loose, not stretched tight, not “disciplined”?

A. W. Tozer(1897–1963), American preacher and author