“Let prayer be your FIRST RECOURSE, not your LAST RESORT.”

Do you understand what you boldly claim?

Learning to depend totally on God gives you the freedom to
unlock the full potential to be all that God has called you to be!

I have been reflecting on this phrase a lot as I have been hearing it from pastor many times recently. I am sure it is something that you have heard many times too, maybe until it has become truism to you.

I realize that as Christians, we can claim this phrase and say it encouragingly to motivate our people to pray, especially in times when we need God’s help most. The question is, do we proclaim it enough when things are going well and comfortably within our control? Human nature will tell us it is not necessary. But HEAR ME, that is when the true meaning of this phrase comes to life. Making prayer our first recourse means we learn to depend on God in EVERYTHING we do. Not just the difficult things. It is an attitude of saying that really, without God, I am nothing. Even in the things that I presume I can do comfortably within my abilities.

There was a time in my 2nd and 3rd year in NUS that I questioned the Lord why He had to teach me over and over again that it was not pleasing to Him that I felt good and secured about my own abilities. I wanted to feel smart and intelligent. I wanted to feel that what I had achieved was a result of my hard work and abilities and that I was an exceptional student! God did not allow that to happen. He would cause situations to occur so that I could no longer have that confidence and reliance in my own self. I would cry out to God, “Is it so wrong to feel good about myself? To take pride in the fact that I am gifted in talented in certain ways? What’s so wrong about that???!”

I know now that God was teaching me reliance on Him. My motivations to feel good and confident about myself and in my own abilities came from wanting to know that I could do it, EVEN without God. And that was sin. It was not an easy journey as I often questioned my significance as a person of worth when I did not do as well in school as I wanted to.

However, when I finally understood what it meant not to take pride in myself but to take pride in my God, I had a new freedom to do things God’s way and to partner with Him in the Holy Spirit. Making prayer our last resort reduces God to a genie who grants us 3 wishes. Making prayer our FIRST RECOURSE, is a life of total surrender and obedience and fruitfulness in Christ. Don’t just listen to me, decide that is how you will live today.


Joshua Teo