Once upon a time when our children were young, daughter Amy would go to sleep with music on her cassette tape player (maybe I should add “long ago” to that opening line–who even remembers those devices?). One evening she heard me come up the stairs before she had fallen asleep.
“Mom,” she called.
When I peeked into her room, she said sleepily, “Could you push pause and pray?”
What a great question, rebuke, and sermon in those six little words! She was only thinking of the few moments we often shared together at day’s end, but the way she phrased that question made me take notice of my own life. I groped around for the pause button and we did talk to our heavenly Father for a few minutes before she drifted off to sleep.
Then I asked myself where I needed to stop to make time to pray. So many things seemed urgent, but were they the most important in obeying Christ call to “come with me by yourselves to a quiet place…”? He carved out time to pray while He was here on earth: early in the morning alone with His Father … going across the lake to get away from the crowds … how much more do we need to stop to listen and talk to our Father!
Our global pandemic of 2020 has pushed “pause” for us all hasn’t it? Even though God is trying to get our attention, we can still busy ourselves with the distractions of news feeds and and wring our hands over all the uncertainties and unknowns of this disease. We don’t like to call whatever is keeping us from prayer “wicked ways,” but thousands of years ago the Lord told Solomon that “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
Technology has certainly changed since cassette tape days, so now let’s point or click or speak to whatever noise is filling our ears and take advantage of this universal pause to pray.
Finding the Pause Button
