Pray To God, Row To Shore

Have you ever heard the expres­sion, “Pray to God, row to shore?”

I use it some­times as I try to help indi­vid­u­als take respon­si­bil­ity for their phys­i­cal, emo­tional and spir­i­tual health.  For me, it brings up an image of pas­sen­gers and crew launch­ing a lifeboat as their ship sinks.

They know that the open ocean is a dan­ger­ous place and they call upon God for help as they work hard to save them­selves.

It’s a sim­ple con­cept — work for what you want, ask God for help and trust Him to come through.  Yet too often we get it wrong.  Some peo­ple never think of turn­ing to God for help in their lives.

Per­haps they visu­al­ize God as dis­tant or angry and not likely to be inter­ested in them.  Or per­haps they deny God, unwill­ing seri­ously explore the idea that, behind real­ity, an ulti­mate cre­ator exists.  That was me once.

Rely­ing on their own strength, these indi­vid­u­als may work very hard for “the good life.”

Some­times the effort sees them through to their goals, but not always.  Sooner or later they come up short, or they achieve their goals only to find that they don’t have “the good life” despite their achieve­ments.  That was also my expe­ri­ence.

Other make the oppo­site mis­take.

They call upon God to solve their prob­lems with­out tak­ing any con­crete action to help them­selves.  In my expe­ri­ence, that’s not how God usu­ally works.  Just pray­ing for phys­i­cal, emo­tional and spir­i­tual health alone won’t make you healthy.  You’ve got to do some work.

Take a look at just about any mirac­u­lous story from the Bible and you will see that there was some sort of indi­vid­ual or group action involved beyond prayer.

In short God did his part, but the indi­vid­u­als also did their part.  And that’s how it is with our health and well­be­ing.  We do our part and He does his.

I believe that God wants us all to be healthy in mind, body and spirit.

“What does that look like,” you ask?  Try this:  Your body is lean and mus­cu­lar.  You’re filled with energy, you sleep well and noth­ing hurts.  It feels good to exer­cise.

You are gen­er­ally happy and rarely angry, depressed or frus­trated.  Oth­ers are attracted to you because of your patience, kind­ness and the love you radi­ate.  You feel the lov­ing pres­ence of God and know that He is work­ing in your life.

That’s the degree of good health that I’d like you to have.  If you’re not mov­ing in that direc­tion what’s hold­ing you back?

Of course it takes effort but wouldn’t you like to have the good health that God intends for you?  Will you work for it?  Will you ask God to help and step out in the faith that He will?

Trust me.  God loves you and wants to help you, but you have to take the first steps your­self.  You’ve got to ask and you’ve got to start.

Go for it. You can do it.

“…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kind­ness, good­ness, faith­ful­ness, gen­tle­ness and self-control.”- Paul, Gala­tians 5:22–23