Praying with Peter

I Peter 4:7.  The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. 8. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

The pressure is on (“the end of all things is near”) THEREFORE be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray.

What would it do to your feelings of ‘pressure’ if you considered everything through the perspective that ‘the end of all things is near’?

Back in early 1983 my dad and I had been considering purchasing a farm on contract from an elderly lady. It was something I wanted to do with him - as much for him as it was for myself. Decades earlier my mom and dad had lost a baby, lost a farm and gave up their school teaching careers to relocate where dad could make a living...I could only address one of those losses, and I wanted to do it. Suddenly my dad was on his deathbed in a hospital.

I was grieving, deeply. In my grief I was anticipating the loss of my dad, my partner, my advisor, my friend. I was at a loss just in the knowledge of the impending loss. In somewhat of a panic I tried to get advice from him about several business situations as he was lying there dying. He knew he was dying, the doctor had told him and the family that it was possibly just a matter of hours, days at the most. It didn't end up being days.

“So, dad, what should I do about buying that farm?” His response to me was so very instructive in its absence of instruction – “It doesn’t matter to me…whatever you want to do.” That was the last conversation I had with my dad.

The end of things was very near for him, and his mind was clear. His priorities were in order. He was ready for eternity and it was about to claim him. There were eternal matters at stake.

Be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. There are eternal matters at stake, don't lose focus of the difference between the temporal and the eternal.

What hinders our prayers? Never the less, not my will but Thine be done.