Ryan's Ramblings

Sadly, many of us would not pray if we weren’t driven to our knees.

— Ben Patterson

I’ve walked with the Lord for more than forty years. I share that not as a credential, but as context.

I felt called into ministry in my twenties. I was ordained. I preached and taught. I led worship, opened Scripture through both spoken word and written reflection, officiated weddings and funerals, dedicated babies, baptized believers, prayed with people in hospitals, led groups, discipled others, and encouraged people—again and again—to trust God with their lives.

Prayer was always part of my vocabulary and my practice. It just wasn’t always part of my dependence—and I didn’t know it.

That realization came as a surprise.

In the years leading up to 2019, my health began to unravel in ways I couldn’t explain. At first, it seemed manageable. I adjusted. I compensated. I told myself this was just aging, stress, life.

That’s what capable people do.

But the symptoms worsened. My thinking grew foggy. My body failed me without warning. I got lost on familiar roads. I said things that didn’t make sense. There were moments when I couldn’t move or respond at all.

Eventually came the diagnosis: a rare pancreatic tumor—an insulinoma. No medication. No simple fix. My body was undermining me from the inside.

And somewhere in that unraveling, something else came into focus.

I realized I had been enduring the situation—but not entrusting it to God. I was functioning on experience, resilience, and self-reliance, while anxiously carrying a burden I was never meant to carry alone.

James writes,

“Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” (James 1:2–3, NIV)

Testing has a way of revealing what our faith is actually resting on. It strips away the illusion of control and exposes how easily competence can masquerade as trust. And when testing turns into trouble, prayer becomes less of a discipline and more of a necessity.

James later writes:

“Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray.”

(James 5:13, NIV)

Let them pray. Not analyze. Not manage. Not push through.

Pray.

That verse finally found me—not as a teaching point, but as a mirror. I had prayed for others in their trouble and encouraged them to ask for prayer. I had seen God act. And yet, I had not named my own need.

So I did.

I asked for prayer. I let others carry me when I could not carry myself. Healing was not immediate—but peace was. And with it came a deeper, quieter faith—one shaped not by strength, but by surrender, and by the steady awareness that Jesus had not stepped back from my suffering, but had drawn near within it.

Patterson is right. Sadly, many of us would not pray if we weren’t driven to our knees.

But when trouble finally tells the truth about us, graciously, God is willing to meet us there. And Scripture tells us what to do next:

… Let them pray.