"Prayer should be backed up with work, not backing up our work with prayer"

"Prayer should be backed up with work, not backing up our work with prayer"
Backing up our work with prayer is a common misconception among Christians and it can become very confusing among Christians especially when things don't go to plan for them. Because they think "Yes"- I have prayed, "Yes"- I have faith and "Yes"- I have worked hard. If prayer is your back-up plan then all it is ever going to be is your back-up plan. We must put God first.
Many people think when we say put God first it means it means that when we wake-up in the morning we should pray to God even I sometimes think this. But if we think about it, it doesn't mean putting God first in the day. It means putting God first throughout the day.
And if you are backing up your work with prayer you are not putting God first.
The Bible says in James 2 vs 26- "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also" (New Kings James Bible)
It doesn't say that work without faith is dead. Even though that is partly true, we must have the faith and then work before we can work with faith.
Having faith and praying before you work to me is like fuel that carries you and it will carry you so much further than if you are working and then whenever something goes wrong you pray. I call these kind of prayers survival prayers or panic prayers.
Even if something does go wrong when you pray beforehand, you will have the confidence or the faith that God will help, just simply because you have prayed.
In Church we were looking at the importance of planning.
Most successful people plan before they work which is great. But as Christians we should learn to pray, plan and then work. The PPW- I like to call.
In fact we can even think of it as the PPP- Prayer, Plan and Progress. If we pray and plan we will progress.
Prayer doesn't substitute for planning and planning doesn't substitute prayer.
Jeremiah 29 vs 11 "I alone know the plans I have you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to to bring about the future you hope for" (good news)
It clearly states that God has plans for us. So as we pray to God he will reveal he has for us and then we can plan how we are going to fulfil God's plan for us. In fact, God is so great that he will help us plan and he will also help us when it comes to doing the work. So when you come to think of it since God is with us every step of the way there isn't really a problem.
Again as I said earlier if prayer is your back-up plan it will always continue to be your back-up plan. And like all back-up plans it only works once everything else has failed. I think the best thing we can do is to think of it as a sandwich and back-up our prayer with work and back-up our work with prayer.