Pioneer Christian Monthly - January, 1990

Wrestling In Prayer
Dirk Kramer

It doesn't take you long when you're in the ministry to realize that there are certain things you can't do. Hurts vou can't heal. Marriages you can't mend. Burdens you can't ease. Problems you can't solve. Griefs you can't erase. If you're a parent or a friend to somebody or work with people in any way, you soon realize it, too.

The world we live in, the world others live in, is a world that can't be controlled. At least not by us. Some wonder if it can even be controlled by God; or if He's somehow locked Himself out, unable to intervene, subservient to the natural laws He Himself has instituted.

Does Praying Make a Difference?

It's in this kind of world that we're encouraged to pray. And so we do. Or at least we try. But sooner or later the nagging question arises: Does it really Help? Does it make a difference? Or as the question is put in the Book of Job: "Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him? What would we gain by praying to Him?" (Job 21:15 NIV)

At times, we're tempted to give pp, to quit, to not go on with playing anymore. Or, if we're not willing to go quite that far, to do it halfheartedly out of custom or habit. To go through the motions out of a sense of duty or as a mere formality. Something that religious people do.

The subject of prayer raises many questions. Perplexing questions. But none them more perplexing than how does prayer work? Or the prior question, does prayer work, especially our prayers on behalf of others? In a world so uncontrollable, a world where it sometimes seems as if God is limited by the twin forces of natural law and human freedom, can we really expect prayer to change anything?

I once had a man I was visiting in the hospital ask me if I really thought it made a difference to pray for healing and a quick discharge date. After all, he reasoned, hadn't God already decided how long he was going to be there and whether he got better or not? He wondered if there was any value in thinking that by praying we could somehow change God's mind. It was a good question from a spiritually-minded man who obviously spent his time in the hospital thinking deep thoughts.

We've all thought such thoughts, or thoughts like them. Sometimes they account for our lukewarmness -or lack of interest in prayer. "After all," we think, "God knows what the score is. He knows what our needs are. He knows what other people's needs are. Why should we get personally involved, with our- limited knowledge, in this whole matter of dispensing or withholding blessings? That's His business. He'll carry out His will regardless."

Does our prayer for someone else--a rebellious child, a sick parent, a grieving friend--really do anything? Does it really help? Does it change things? Do we dare to believe-that what one wise man once wrote about prayer is true?

Every earnest act of intercession affects the situation towards which it is directed so ... as to create a new situation. Through it circumstances are often changed, and even if these are unchanged hearts are changed, and when hearts are changed circumstances are transformed, till temptations become altar stairs, and a cross becomes a gate into life ... No situation remains the same when prayer is made about it ... Prayer always creates a new situation."-

JESUS AND PRAYER

One of the strongest allies of faith in the power of intercessory prayer is Jesus Christ himself. He taught and practiced it. It was Jesus who said to Peter: "I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail" (Lk. 22:12). Mothers brought their children to him for him to "place his hands on them and pray for them.' (Mt. 19:13). He prayed for the crowd that gathered around Lazarus' tomb that they may believe that You (God) sent me" (Jn. 11:42).

When we consider the midnight prayers of Jesus, are we to believe that they were only for himself? Didn't he urge his followers to "pray for those who persecute you" (Mt. 5:44)? Was it not a call to intercessory prayer when he said to the disciples: "Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field" (Mt. 9:38)?

The most powerful example we have of the intercessory prayer life of Jesus is in the seventeenth chapter of John, which contains "the high priestly prayer" of Jesus. In that prayer we hear him interceding tenderly and earnestly for his disciples and those who would believe in him through their word. There we hear him praying for us!

Yes. The first followers of Jesus saw their Lord and Master as the Intercessor. One who to this day performs that work for us. They learned from him and from those who learned from him.

A PASTOR'S PRAYER LIFE

One who learned his lessons well was Epaphras, founder of the churches in Colossae, Laodicea, and Hierapolis. Paul and Epaphras were kindred spirits. They were close. They probably shared the same room when Paul was in Colossae. And when Epaphras prayed, Paul knew it. Quietly and reverently, Paul must have observed Epaphras at prayer. As their friendship grew, he must have had occasion- to talk to him, to ask him about his prayer life. As a result of these observations and conversations, Paul described their pastor's prayer life when he wrote the Colossians. "He is always wrestling in prayer for you, Paul writes them, "that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured" (Col. 4:12).

Epaphras prayed constantly. He was a good example of one who followed Paul's admonition in Colossians 4 to "devote yourselves to prayer" (Col. 4:2), or as the Revised Standard Version puts it, "continue steadfastly in prayer." Epaphras didn't pray only when lie felt so inclined.-No-r did he pray when he was told to pray, or when other believers prayed. In his thought life, he was always in a state of prayer, tuned to God, seeking His- blessing.

Epaphras prayed conscientiously. He "wrestled" in prayer, Paul says, He agonized. The same word is used-to describe our Lord's praying in the Garden of Gethsemane when his sweat fell like great drops of blood on the ground, as Luke tells us. We get the impression that prayer was serious business for Epaphras. There was no quick knocking on the door of heaven and then running away. "No light breathing of desire," F. B. Meyer says, "no formal mention of (other-'s) names; but it seemed as though he were a wrestler, whose muscles stood out ... as he agonized for the prize."

Epaphras prayed compassionately, Epaphras didn't pray around the world for everybody 'in general and nobody in particular, but he focused his prayers on the needs of his people in the three cities they were He spoke their names and was specific about their needs. No generic prayer would ever do as far as Epaphras was concerned. He prayed personally and compassionately.

Epaphras prayed concretely. He may not have kept a prayer diary, that if you would have asked Epaphras what exactly he was praying for, he would have had an answer. He wanted what any pastor wants for his people. His -one eat desire was that the people For whom he was responsible and whom he loved deeply might grow to maturity in the Christian faith.

HOW WE ARE TO PRAY

I don't know whose name or face enters your mind as you read these lines.- Someone who needs your prayers. Perhaps you know someone who is in mourning, disappointed, or unemployed. Someone who has to carry a heavy burden or faces a personal struggle. Your pastor. The missionaries your church supports. I'm sure there's someone you live with, work with, go to school with who needs your attention. There are family situations you know about or are directly involved in. A son or daughter who hasn't met your expectations, or a parent who hasn't been all that a parent should be.

Personally I appreciate the concern Epaphras had for churches in other towns. What an impact that would have if more believers would do that! -Not only pray for their own pastor and congregation-, but for other pastors and congregations. We often talk (or should I say gossip) about what goes on in other churches. Do we spend an equal amount of time talking to God a out those situations?

We're concerned, too, or at least we ought to be, with people with whom we need to share our faith. Nominal Christians we'd like to see reach mature adulthood in Christ, our children included.

We're also concerned with great issues. With peace and justice, hunger and poverty, with protecting the environment of the world and the environment within a mother's womb.

Those who are willing to pray about such situations must, however, be willing to assume an unconventional posture when they pray. They must be willing- to pray with their eyes open, as it were. What we must realize is that even the simplest of our requests may entail the changing of a great many powerful factors before an answer can come. When we pray for the improvement of some condition even in our personal life, our health, a change in our way of thinking, our attitudes, the conquest of some moral temptation, we're up against deeply entrenched forces in the human character. These forces aren't going to give way at the part. The same has to be said of our prayers for such great causes as world peace, human justice and well-being, the growth, spread, and purity of the church. These are campaigns that aren't going to be over in a summer. What it'll take is heroic perseverance!

And what must also be realized about those who're serious about prayer is that along with open eyes we must pray with unfolded hands. We have to be willing to pay the price which are asking entails. If our praying is to have meaning and be effective, we'll have to take upon ourselves some of the-cost exacted as the price for the change which we seek to have brought about in a person or situation. The cost of prayer for others, you see, always takes as its symbol the cross of Jesus Christ.

May we, like Epaphras, take prayer seriously enough THE NATIVES ARE RESTLESS

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