Three little verses ... but verses that echo the heartbeat of Christianity! The subject?
Prayer ............. foundational, necessary, easy/difficult, misunderstood, comforting/disturbing, the anchor in the life of our Lord and in the life of the apostle Paul.
Prayer ............ communion with God, disclosing our own hearts to God, listening for God, aligning our will to the will of God.
And Paul tells these believers to "devote themselves to prayer." The Greek word translated "devote" is the word proskartereo. Listen to the nuances of that word as described in the Enhanced Strong's Lexicon: to adhere to; to be constant to; to be steadfastly attentive to; to give unremitting care to a thing; to persevere and not to faint; to show one's self courageously for; to be in constant readiness; to wait on constantly. Do we get it? Do we grasp the absolute necessity and importance of this? Do we understand that it will take a decision of our wills and a determination of our hearts to stay constant in prayer? As I get a sense of the word that Paul chooses through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit - devote - I begin to grasp that prayer is a decision, a choice, and will require my own determination to maintain. It is not a laundry list of my wants and desires. Nor is it an activity that I will choose to continue as long as I am getting my way. It is uniting my spirit and will with God Himself. I find it interesting that one of the phrases to describe this word, devote, is: to show one's self courageously for. Do you think it takes courage to be faithful in prayer? I can see that. So often our prayers consist of our heart's desires ... very often for good things ... and we do not see a resolution or a fulfillment of the heart's desire. That's when courage to continue kicks in - in hard times, in pleasant times, in dry times, in rich times.
Be watchful ... The New American Standard translation uses "keeping alert". The Greek word here is gragoreuo. It means vigilant, wakeful. This is no sleepy, indolent, tack on at the end of the day kind of thing. It is intentional, deliberate. I wonder if Paul is thinking about the Garden of Gethsemane when the apostles could not stay awake and pray as Jesus had asked them to do. Or perhaps he is thinking of the transfiguration when Jesus is seen in His glory on the mountain accompanied by Moses and Elijah. (Luke 9:28 - 36). Listen to verses 30 - 32:
Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem. Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw His glory and the two men standing with Him.
Peter, James and John had to wake up to see the Lord's glory! I don't think Paul is condemning folks for falling asleep in prayer on occasion. I think he is reminding them of the necessity for planned times of prayer when you are at your best - fully awake! William Barclay comments, "Often there is in our prayers a kind of listlessness and tiredness. At such a time we should not try to be long in prayer: God will understand the single sentence, when we have to utter it like a child who is too tired to stay awake."
Next, the NASB translates the word, thankful, as - 'with an attitude of thanksgiving.' Our prayer lives, indeed our entire lives, need to be wrapped in the blanket of a thankful attitude. You are God's child ... secure in Him ... safe ... whole ... all because of Him and Jesus' finished work on the cross. Therefore, gratitude pours out. When you are not feeling very thankful, when life hammers in hard ... find something you can verbalize ... something to be grateful for ... something from the hand of God that you can thank Him for. And say it out loud.
Finally, as Paul asks these believers to pray for him, I am touched more by what he does not ask than by what he asks. He is in prison ... and he does not ask them to pray for his release. He does not ask them to pray for a favorable outcome at his trial. He does not ask for a time of ease and peace. It is all about Christ - the work - open doors for the message of Jesus - opportunities to proclaim the "mystery of Christ" (which we have learned is 'Christ in you, the hope of glory!')
I have much to learn about prayer. Mine still tend to be more self-centered than Christ centered, more Gail-focused than Kingdom-focused. So that will be my prayer today ...
Lord, help us, strengthen us, give us the courage to be more Christ centered in our prayer. We desire to be strong in prayer - super-heroes even - in the realm of prayer.
Forgive our carelessness with it. Grow us up in You ... and, indeed, teach us to pray.
I'm looking at the words pray, watch, and be thankful and thinking how many times we get them out of order or misapply them. When I pray for something, I sometimes get tunnel vision and simply stare in the direction I think the solution will come from...and I am taken completely off-guard when it appears somewhere else. Worse still, sometimes I miss it completely and tend to pout instead of thanking Him -- ouch! The directive to "be alert" implies an attitude of expectancy, of looking in all directions so as to be the first to notice and sound the alarm. We miss the perfect answers God sometimes drops right in our laps because we expect Him to solve problems in narrowly-prescribed ways.
ReplyDeleteSomebody said "Faith is not a list of what we believe, it is living like God keeps His promises." Maybe it is also praying like God keeps His promises -- expectantly?
"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?" Isaiah 43:18-19