“To be much for God, we must be much with God.” I read again today about Robert Murray M'Cheyne. He spoke Hebrew with the Jewish intellectuals. God skilled him to write hymns. He wrote his journal in Latin. Many churches tried to hire him away from his smaller parish. But no church could offer him more time to pray. His preaching in Dundee Scotland was greatly empowered by his praying. “We are who we are on our knees and nothing more,” he wrote. Are we strongly devoted to prayer?
Paul wrote to the Colossians about prayer. Chained in a cell, he found himself free to pray. “Devote yourselves to prayer.” We pray watchfully, observing what God is doing around us so that we may join him. We pray thankfully because we know that God is at work among us. Paul asked for prayer for himself so that he might proclaim the mystery of Christ clearly. This is my own burden in prayer these days: that my words would be empowered by the Spirit, more than they are eloquent or filled with human wisdom.
While Paul wrote this letter, he saw Epaphras on his knees, across the room, praying for the people of Colosse. Like Jacob by the river Jabbok, Epaphras wrestled in prayer. The word for wrestling is our English word “agonizing.” As Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, he agonized in prayer as well. Have we ever broken a sweat in prayer? Paul goes on to say that Epaphras was working hard for the Colossians. Oswald Chambers said, “Prayer does not fit us for greater works. Prayer is the greater work.” Let’s devote ourselves to prayer today. Not only are we working as we pray, but best of all, God is working.
