A recent ComRes opinion poll revealed that twice as many people in the 18-34 age group prayed compared with those aged over 55. But regardless of age, the question is: what do we do when we pray? Here in our verse today, Paul encourages Timothy to have the right focus in his praying.

Our natural condition is to be self-centred, so it is very easy for us to see prayer in an entirely selfish way. We pray for ourselves, our happiness, our health, our family, our future and so on. All of those things are perfectly proper subjects for prayer, but if they become the exclusive focus of our prayers, something has gone seriously wrong. Paul reminded Timothy that the priority of his life needed to be to pray for others, particularly those in authority. This was especially challenging at the time, because many of the rulers were violently opposed to Christians. However, Paul tells his young friend that they needed to be on his prayer list.

Paul saw prayer as Timothy’s priority. There is no doubt that Timothy had many responsibilities as a leader. He had pressing issues to deal with every day. He needed to be robust in defending the truth of the gospel and particularly because there were many who were seeking to destroy the Church. He had an incredibly busy ministry but amid all his vital work, Paul told him that prayer needed to be his priority. That’s an important observation for us all because it is often tempting to see activity as our priority. We feel we should be busy. But what the Lord really wants is for us to be prayerful. In short, if we are too busy to pray, we’re too busy!

I am convinced that prayer still needs to be our priority. We will all be busy with many different things, but prayer needs to be number one because this is God’s work, and in prayer, we show our dedication to working in partnership with him.

Is prayer your priority? If it is, rejoice! If it isn’t, think through how this could happen.

Loving God, please help me to take prayer more seriously and to place it at the heart of my life. Amen