MANY of us only pray when trouble comes. Perplexity is the great provocative of prayer. Adversity bends the knee that never stoops at any other time, yet our prayer is not unwelcome because necessity provokes it. God invites the emergency cry: “Call upon Me in the day of trouble and I will answer thee.” When trouble comes, that is the time to pray.
The time to pray is when sorrow visits us, when loss, trial, deprivation overtakes us. But the time to pray is not only when winter rolls the snowdrift to our door; it is also when summer makes the flowers to grow in the garden, for the time to pray is every time; there is no time when God is not necessary. Pray without ceasing.
Dr. John Macbeath.