One
morning, when I was a young child, I was sitting in the kitchen, watching my
mother prepare breakfast. Unexpectedly, the grease in the skillet in which she
was frying bacon caught fire. Flames shot into the air and my mother ran to the
pantry for a bag of flour to throw on the blaze.
“Help!” I
shouted. And then I added, “Oh, I wish it was time to pray!” “It’s time to
pray” must have been a frequent household expression, and I took it quite
literally to mean we could pray only at certain times.
The time
to pray, of course, is any time—especially when we’re in crisis. Fear, worry,
anxiety, and care are the most common occasions for prayer. It is when we are
desolate, forsaken, and stripped of every human resource that we naturally
resort to prayer. We cry out with the words of David, “Help me, O Lord!” ( Ps.
70:01).
John
Cassian, a 5th-century Christian, wrote of this verse: “This is the terrified
cry of someone who sees the snares of the enemy, the cry of someone besieged
day and night and exclaiming that he cannot escape unless his Protector comes
to the rescue.”
May this
be our simple prayer in every crisis and all day long: “Help, Lord!”
There is
no place or time we cannot pray. (RBC)
