There are a few constants in life. One of them is said to be, “It always gets done.” This means that whatever the task is, whatever the deadline, be patient because it will get achieved on time. But, this is false. This is not a constant of life. “It” does not always get done because we don’t always do “it”.
Things only get done with two working forces: God and Man. If God doesn’t breathe on our labors, then we are just wasting our time. But, we must have labors if God is to breathe on them. Not even God can steer a parked car.
The ungodly worldview sees tension between work and prayer. Some people work, some people pray. That’s the majority paradigm. Beware of the “major-minor” version of this: Some people mostly work, some people mostly pray. It’s just the same, though.
The Pilgrims had this problem. When the mainmast broke, the “Saints” prayed while the “Strangers” said, “God won’t fix it, we will.” That polarity was all too common in the centuries that followed. Actually, everyone—everyone who will die and be judged by the Creator God—must give work and prayer an equal priority. We may be known for one or the other in our vocations and public lives, but in the wholeness of our private lives, our friends and family must know that prayer and work have an equal place in our offices, workshops, dens, living rooms, minds, journals, and hearts.
Many people live without diligence toward both work and prayer, never knowing how much they miss out on. Difficulties come along, God carries them, they tell about His provision; they survive the very hardships they caused. Sometimes, God sent those storms to test our lives, as He did with Job. But, other times, we brought about our own failure by not being prepared by our diligence in work and our diligence in prayer—our diligence in understanding God’s morals in the Bible and our diligence in living out those morals. God stays with us through whatever problems we cause, so we rarely see that our own nondiligence caused them—and we never find out what we missed out on.
Psalm 127:1, Matthew 25:1-13