Prayer as a Last Resort

There was a sailor who was taking a group of young students on a day trip in the ocean. Before commencing the journey, he started by saying a prayer. When the young passengers saw it, they laughed at him, “The day is fine and sunny, and the sea is calm. What’s the need of a prayer in such good conditions?”

However, soon afterwards, a storm suddenly blew up and the boat began to pitch violently. This terrified the passengers so much that they started praying for their safety. Some of them came to the sailor and asked him to join in the prayers.

The sailor replied, “I say my prayers when it is calm. When it is rough, it is time to attend to the boat.”

This simple story has a great lesson for us. If we cannot remember God in quiet moments of our lives, we are not likely to find Him when trouble strikes, and are more prone to panic. Only if we learn to seek Him and develop a solid faith during quiet moments, then we will most certainly find Him helping us during turbulence.

Make a habit of thanking God and praying every day when the going is good, as you never know when the situation may change. We tend to use prayer as a last resort, but it should be our first line of defense. We pray when there is nothing else we can do; but why not pray before we do anything at all. If we keep our faith, and pray during happy times, God will help us resolve our issues in a timely manner so that we do not have to experience a crisis. Five hundred years back, Sant Kabir expressed it beautifully in the following couplet: 

दुःख में सुमरन सब करें, सुख में करे न कोय
जो सुख में सुमरन करे, तो दुःख काहे को होय