It’s easy to pray to God when life is hard and we need help. Humans remember how helpless we are on this earth when things go bad. We think of God’s promises when things get hard. It’s easier to forget God is with us when things are going great. However, God wants our love and focus all the time.
Have you ever had a friend who you only hear from when all their friends are busy or a sibling you only hear from when they need help or a place to crash? The Big Bang Theory is a television show about nerds and geeks. They are people who are not easy to be friends with because of social awkwardness. A running joke in the show is that their friends only hang out with them when they don’t have other plans. The audience laughs, but the viewer can see how much that hurts the characters every time.
God is walking with us and helping us all the time. He loves talking to us and when we turn to him. Imagine how much it hurts him when we ignore him for more interesting things.
What the Bible says
When life is hard, we know we need help. When life is easy, it’s easy to think we did it ourselves and we deserve this ease. Moses knew the dangers of this line of thought and warned the Israelites against it in his farewell speech in Deuteronomy 8.
You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.
Deuteronomy 8:17-18
Chapter 8 had been talking about how God disciplined the Israelites in the desert up to that point. Chapter 9 started with the fact that they were being given the land to punish the people who were on the land and as a promise to the Israelite’s ancestors. The current generation hadn’t earned the gift of the promised land. In fact, they had rebelled numerous times and should’ve lost the gift then. God gave them a fruitful land and easy life for other reasons than what they deserved.
In fact, every time the Israelites had an easy life, they started worshiping other gods and ignored God’s commands. The whole book of Judges is about how there would be peace in the land and they turned from God to worship local gods. Then God would get angry and send an invading army. After a few years they would be desperate enough to go back to the old God to ask for rescue, probably because their new gods didn’t save them and they were desperate. God would have pity on them and send a judge to save them. There would be peace during the life of the God-fearing judge. Then the judge died and immediately the people would be ignoring God.
That cycle repeated itself throughout the Old Testament. When times were good, they got distracted by easy living. After all, worshiping at temples and buying the favor of deities at a temple is easier than living by all the rules God gave them. Eventually, God always reminded them who was in charge, but he still got angry every time they abandoned him.
Prayer when life is good
God still uses hard times to bring believers back to him or to teach us something. He also gives us easy times to help us handle hard times better. We need to remember that the good times in life are a blessing from God just as God has a purpose for our hard times. He is helping through both and we should not forget him just because we’re happy.
Prayer is a way for modern Christians to remember God in our daily life. We need to remember to pray to God and talk to him every day. It’s easy to remember him when we need help, but we should remember him so we can thank him for good days too.
