I read this sentence in my UCB notes today and it really stopped me in my tracks.

“You can do great things after you’ve prayed, but you can do nothing of eternal value until you’ve prayed.”

Sometimes we can think that what we are doing is of value… we can esteem it and hold onto it and even believe it to be of God. But guess what? It might not be. It just might seem it.
Plenty of things look like the real thing but are in fact elaborate fakes. Take the art world or antique trade as an example; some people go to HUGE trouble, not to mention expense, to make a forgery. It looks like the real thing but is in fact new, ‘aged’ and worthless.

Everything that God has planned for us to do is the real deal. It is priceless and of much worth to Him.

Don’t waste your time working on a fake. Learn to know the difference between what has value and what is cheap and gone with the wind. Next time someone asks you to do something, pray it through; assess whether it smells like it has the sense of the eternal about it. If it doesn’t, it ain’t worth the paper its written on.

(The picture above shows Mr Henry Sandon MBE of the Antiques Roadshow – surely the nicest man ever to have touched a hideous figurine rabbit.)