Begin with Prayer and See What Happens

At Bible Study a few days ago someone asked me a difficult question about the relationship between intentional good works and Jesus' statement to remain ignorant of what we do--"But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing" (Matt. 6:3).

My answer was to pray and pray before anything else. Even as I said it, it sounded like a cop-out to me, an easy excuse. Pastor doesn't know how to answer, so he just says "Pray!" and weasels out of another jam. I don't believe anyone besides me actually thought this. But I did. How do we do good works, but not place our faith in them? How do we help the needy, yet be ignorant of what we do? How do I bear fruit but not take pride in them? It must all start with prayer, which is to say a faith that calls upon the Lord often.

Life begun with prayer and continued with prayer will yield its fruits. If we are so occupied with prayer, perhaps our hands will help, our mouths will praise without our even knowing it. Perhaps if pray is upon our heart, we will confess our sin and glorify God for His mercy even as we give our offerings and sacrifice for our family, our congregation, our neighbor.