On Prayer (Gen 5:24)

"Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away." - Gen 5:24

Isaiah 30 says, "This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.

You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee! You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift!"

When our busyness is such that we have no time for God, and for being in His presence, everything we do is unprofitable, and our time gets eaten up as fast as it can pass.  Ben Patterson wrote, "How do we try to solve our busyness? Why, we get busier! God’s judgment is to hand us over to the logic of our choices. The faster we run, the faster our anxieties will run. Until, perhaps, we fall exhausted and let God be God."

Some hearing that might feel smug, thinking that such could never happen to them, and certainly not to their beloved pastor.  Theologian Hans Kung wrote On Being a Christian, a 602-page theology of the Christian life, without a word about prayer. He was asked why, and he answered, in effect, “I forgot.” There was the publisher’s deadline, and the harassment he was receiving from the Vatican, and he overlooked prayer.

When was the last time you went to bed and looked back over a single day, feeling you could say you did all you were supposed to do?  But there is always enough time to do what God wants us to do. The problem is we don’t know what he wants because we’re too busy doing what we think he might want done. It really wouldn’t be a bad idea to ask Him what he wants, would it? And then to listen?

In the days before the flood, humankind lived far longer than we do today.   One might think that to be able to do so would be so much better than our short lives today.  Just think of what we could accomplish and do if we lived 700-900 years instead of 70-90!  Yet Genesis 5:21-24 says, "When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters.  Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years.  Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away."

Enoch had only about half the time that his contemporaries did, before God took him away.  Why did the Lord take him away?  Because "he walked with God".  To do that - to honor God in your daily walk - is to live the very best quality of life, because the whole point of life is that we might be God's people, and He might be our God.  To walk with God is to follow His leading.  He leads, and we follow.  He speaks, and we act.  He directs, and we obey.   In all things He is our God.  God's people know Him to be good, and we know that all He does is not only to His glory, but to our great benefit.  That kind of life starts with listening to Him.  It starts when we are in dialogue with Him.  It starts when we take the time to pray.   Amen.