And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water… Psalm 1a, KJV

Like many people, the skin on my hands gets dry during the cold, chapping Winter months. For years I tried combating this problem with copious applications of hand lotion, and for a time, after each application, the skin on my hands would be okay. But, the “okayness” wouldn’t last, and before long I’d have to apply lotion again to my dry, itchy hands.

Then, a few years back, I discovered something interesting. When I drank more water, my hands stopped being dry and itchy. I no longer needed to use lotion to combat the chapped skin because there was no chapped skin! There was no chapped skin because my higher water intake nourished my skin from within, ending the need to try to nourish the skin from without.

A lot of times we deal with the problems of life by trying to apply a random layer of prayer to some area of our lives that is chapped. When we approach our problems in this manner, chances are that we will receive the same kind of relief that my hands received from the lotion: temporary. After the prayer relief wears off, the chapping returns, and then we will have to apply another layer of panic prayer to deal with the problem.

Don’t get me wrong. God wants us to pray for help when things get tough. But that’s not the only time He wants us to pray, and that’s where our problem lies: most of us pray only when things get tough. Throughout the Bible, God encourages us to pray to Him without ceasing. When we do this, and when we couple a consistent prayer life with a consistent Bible study habit, then we will engage in a perpetual conversation with God that will nourish our souls from the inside out. We won’t need copious amounts of panic prayers to deal with life’s harsh circumstances, applied only when our souls get dry. Instead, we’ll be moistened from within against the chapping winds of life by truly understanding, through constant communication with Him, that He really will never leave us nor forsake us.