THE PRAYER REFLEX
Greetings church family!
This week we continue in our year-long journey through the book of Daniel.
Daniel 2:13-18 - The decree was issued that the wise men were to be executed, and they searched for Daniel and his friends, to execute them. Then Daniel responded with tact and discretion to Arioch, the captain of the king’s guard, who had gone out to execute the wise men of Babylon. He asked Arioch, the king’s officer, “Why is the decree from the king so harsh?” Then Arioch explained the situation to Daniel. So Daniel went and asked the king to give him some time, so that he could give the king the interpretation. Then Daniel went to his house and told his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah about the matter, urging them to ask the God of the heavens for mercy concerning this mystery, so Daniel and his friends would not be destroyed with the rest of Babylon’s wise men.
How do you respond when you receive a vicious email? What’s your immediate reaction when you encounter a financial setback? Life has an interesting way of putting our backs to the wall every now an then.
There’s a story of a project manager who was overseeing a high-stakes rollout at a mid-sized company. After months of work, a critical error surfaced days before launch—an error the project manager’s team hadn’t caused, but one that now bore her name.
Her first response was fury. She fired off emails late into the night, copying executives, pointing fingers, sharpening her tone with every sentence. The more she typed, the worse she slept. By morning, she was anxious, defensive, and braced for war. Before the next meeting, a mentor pulled her aside and said simply, “You’re not wrong—but you’re not helping yourself.”
Anger tries to seize control. It says, “If I get loud enough, sharp enough, strong enough, I can force this situation to bend.”
The project manager stepped into an empty conference room, closed the door, and prayed—not eloquently, not calmly, but honestly. "God, I’m angry. I’m scared. If I speak from this place, I’ll burn bridges I can’t rebuild. Help me respond with clarity, not heat.”
When the meeting began, she spoke with tact. She named the problem without accusation. She proposed solutions instead of rehearsing blame. She listened. The tone of the room shifted. The launch was delayed, but relationships were preserved. Weeks later, an executive told her, “That meeting could have gone very differently. Your composure changed everything.”
The problem didn’t vanish. But her response did something fury and worry never could: it created space for wisdom to work.
Sometimes, it isn’t anger that we respond to crises with, but worry.
A few years ago I went with a good friend to Navy Pier in Chicago. We had a fun time riding the ferris wheel, playing miniature golf, and navigating the funhouse maze. As we were ready to go, I realized I didn’t have my car keys with me. Boy did I panic!! We spent the next 20 minutes searching the grounds for my keys. At some point, I asked a security guard if he could radio the other security guards on the campus, asking if anyone had turned in a set of car keys. No keys were found. Feeling dejected and embarrassed, my friend and I walked to the parking lot to my car. My plan was to call an Uber to get home and then deal with my car and the lost keys the next day. However, when we returned to the car, I noticed that the doors were unlocked, and my keys were sitting in the driver’s seat. What a relief!!
You now what I never did that whole time? I never stopped to pray.
Worry is the enemy of prayer. I heard someone say “Worry is worshipping your problem; praying is surrendering your problem.” What if I had stopped to pray before the search? Could it be that God would have calmed my mind long enough for me to remember that I left my keys in the car.
In our Daniel passage this week, Daniel and the rest of the wise men of Babylon have a death sentence hanging over them. King Nebuchadnezzar is fed up with the notion that none of them can tell him his dream nor interpret it. Nebuchadnezzar responded to this futility with fury and disgust. Daniel, with his life on the line, “responded with tact and discretion,” and
Prayer doesn’t deny the reality of adversity. It reframes it. It slows our reflexes just enough for discernment to enter. Tact, born from prayer, is not weakness—it’s strength under discipline. It speaks truth without violence and wields courage without chaos.
When adversity comes—and it will—the question isn’t whether we’ll respond. It’s from where?
Church family, may our hearts be so filled with the Holy Spirit that our response to every unfavorable situation is prayer! Think of it like an object being tossed towards your head. Your automatic reflex in that situation would be to dodge the projectile. My prayer is that, as we grow in Christ, our automatic reaction to crises is the prayer reflex!
Have a great rest of your week!
Pastor Chris
