What we need most, we too often do the least.  This is the lesson we learned this morning in our Men of God in the Morning meeting.  Church planting is a lot of work.  I know you have heard that before, but I can not overstate this truth.  I am reminded of what Paul said about his church planting ministry, “And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches” (2Cor. 11:28).  And while I would never compare my load to that of the Apostle (God forbid), I do resonate with the fact that apart from all of life’s other concerns, there is the daily pressure on me from my concern for the churches I serve.

And so, how do I handle the pressure?  Well, I do like most of you, I work harder.  I try to squeeze more time out of my day and more energy out of my body.  As the government throws more money at its problems, I throw more energy at mine.  Yet, just as more money is not the solution for greed, more energy and work is not the solution for pride.  What I need is more prayer.  Yet, I tell myself that prayer takes time and that is just the thing that I don’t have.  I don’t have time to pray.  Yet, the convicting word this morning was from D.A. Carson, who in the book A Call to Spiritual Reformation wrote:

It matters little whether you are the mother of active children who drain away your energy, an important executive in a major multinational corporation, a graduate student cramming for impending comprehensives, a plumber working overtime to put your children through college, or a pastor of a large church putting in ninety-hour weeks, (or a church planter working as if everything and everyone depends on you):  at the end of the day, if you are too busy to pray, you are too busy.  Cut something out.

(italics is my addition, in case you were wondering .