Philippians 4:6 — Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

Myra and I have had some work done on our house this week. Today we went out to buy a new runner to put down in the front door entry. Before we set out, we asked God for His blessing and guidance. It’s a simple example of something we’re trying to get better at — at praying before we start on anything we try to do. We’re reacting to something that we know in theory, and have proven in practice. If we set out in our own strength things tend to work out badly. If we pray first, things tend to work out well.
It turns out that our problem is not unique to us, and nothing new. The wonderfully faithful and diligent Oswald Chambers said:

We tend to use prayer as a last resort, but God wants it to be our first line of defense. We pray when there’s nothing else we can do, but God wants us to pray before we do anything at all.
Most of us would prefer, however, to spend our time doing something that will get immediate results. We don’t want to wait for God to resolve matters in His good time because His idea of ‘good time’ is seldom in sync with ours.

It’s odd how difficult we find it to remember simple Biblical instructions — simple absolutes. “In everything by prayer”, “pray constantly”, “always keep my commandments”, “always giving thanks”, “examine everything with care”, “proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God”, “never pay back evil for evil” … I’m sure you get my point. The Bible is full of simple straightforward instructions — absolute, unarguable … and yet we do such a poor job of following them.
Of all those basic instructions, “Pray” is the simplest and most important. This is God saying “Depend on Me. Don’t depend on your own strength. There is no way that you can imagine all the things that might go wrong. I’ve got it covered.”
Every time we go ahead in our own strength we might be unintentionally saying to God, “It’s O.K. God. I’ve got this — I really don’t need your help.” Or, as Mr. Chambers points out, we might be saying “You know God, You’re just too slow. Let me help you speed things up.” It’s really a shocking — if unintentional — show of pride.
I don’t know about you, but Myra and I know very well that we need all of God’s help we can get, just when He wants to deliver it. So that’s why we’re trying to get better at praying first!