Prayer is (good) Work

The Visiting Teaching message for June is about prayer. The quote I chose to focus on is by Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles:

“Meaningful prayer requires both holy communication and consecrated work. Blessings require some effort on our part before we can obtain them, and prayer, as ‘a form of work, . . . is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings’. We press forward and persevere in the consecrated work of prayer, after we say ‘amen,’ by acting upon the things we have expressed to Heavenly Father”.

I hadn’t really thought before of prayer as a form of work, so that was of interest to me, and I like how Elder Bednar mentions the continuing work of prayer by acting upon the things we have prayed about. To illustrate this point, I bought a pair of gardening gloves from the dollar store, then attached the quote by Elder Bednar, along with a scaled-down tracing of my hand with the significance of the (work) gloves printed on it. It reads:

“These gardening gloves represent not only our hands in prayer, but also the work we perform as we pray, and as we continue to act upon the things we have prayed about.”

You can download the PDF file for the quote and the hand here. (I cut inside the lines of my hand tracing, because it looks cleaner.)

This visual aid is a springboard for further discussion of the message. You can talk about what consecrated work is, why blessings require work on our part, and how prayer is not passive communication. You could talk about how prayer strengthens us, just as physical labor does. You could also put your hands in the gloves as you share the quote, folding your hands together in prayer, then demonstrating some kind of work with your hands – showing how prayer and work go “hand in hand”.

Have a great month!