Being Watchful in Prayer
Our prayers are a call, and we miss out on God's work when we're not patient enough to look for the response.
Praying always feels like it has to have structure to me. And I think there's a right way to pray, but I'm not sure that there's really a wrong way to pray. Collective prayers are different, obviously. If you pray over someone or with someone, it's important that those people can reflect on that with you. But I think most of our prayers are individual, and still, it can feel challenging. I think it's possible that it doesn't feel that way because we're "bad" at praying, but because for us, the prayer stops once we open our eyes. A lot of us are just guilty of not looking for the answer. Or rather, not being patient enough to wait very long while we look for the answer. I don't think we're necessarily underestimating what God is capable of, but I think we have a hard time sitting in our faith of the Lord for a long period of time. We're great at sending letters, but we hardly check the mailbox afterwards.
There are several places in the New Testament that help give us a good, healthy structure to our prayers themselves. And practicing prayer is great – we can't ever neglect that part of our relationship with God. But the Word also tells us to be watchful in prayer. That means knowing how to wait on the Lord, and being vigilant and keened in on His action while we do it.
"Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving."
Colossians 4:2 (ESV)
Paul describes our watchfulness in prayer in Colossians as being steadfast. This is like setting up our defense, while we search for the answers that God has for our prayers. If we're waiting for them to pass by, we have to stay put, meaning we can't get distracted with the negative or doubtful thoughts and feelings that we're targeted with. The enemy is very strategic – if he can get our eyes onto something else, he can get us to overlook God's answer to our prayers. He'll use the past and future to do that, but he'll rarely use the present – living steadfastly in the present doesn't give the enemy much to work with. He needs us to reflect on the pain of our past, or dread the unpredictability of the future. We'll gladly fall into his hands when he does that, because we can hardly stand the feeling of conscious waiting – no one likes to watch the water boil.
But what if that's just because we don't know how to wait? Or how to watch? Watchful waiting doesn't mean we're doing nothing. It means we're focused on the present, but a lot of what God has to show us can be found in the wait itself. What if we get so focused on the answer to our prayers, that we miss out on experiencing God's intervention show up in places we hadn't even thought of?
Are we living while we're waiting? Where is God right now?
"Be sober-minded; be watchful."
1 Peter 5:8 (ESV)
To keep our defenses strong is to be wise, and to be wise is to be sober. Sobriety makes us think of staying away from man-made toxins and substances, but there are plenty of natural influences that draw us from the gaze we've established on God. The common theme here is blocking out outside interference – in order to stay still, we either have to get rid of the things moving us, or we have to become immovable to some degree. Now, if someone reading this has figured out a way to eliminate their negative emotions, get in touch with me, cause at that point I won't need to write these anymore. Otherwise, our only option is anchoring ourselves somehow, so that the direction we're going isn't dependent solely on us. Good Book comes in there – you get the picture. And I know I repeat this all of the time, but our judgement is always coming from one of two places – our hearts or our minds. One of those things is pretty dense in the grand scheme of things, and the other lies to us like half of the time, so we're not exactly well-off when we're left to our own devices. Not only that, but our hearts and minds are rarely on the same page – so be very careful to decide which one is taking the lead.
"To that end, keep alert with all perseverance . . ."
Ephesians 6:18 (ESV)
Let's get the idea out of our heads that God will always just gift us things in miraculous fashion. Yes, He's more than capable of that; it happens sometimes, too. But ultimately, God answers prayers through people. He answers them through friends and through enemies. Through those we know, and those we don't. Through the lost and the saved. Proof that God is impossibly in control lies in the fact that He performs His own faultless and unimaginable plan through the most sinful and broken creatures in existence. Watchful prayer means understanding that we're not only one of them, but we're surrounded by them – nothing is off-limits for the One that makes the rules. So, knowing that, it's on us to prepare ourselves and put ourselves in a position for God to make amazing things happen. It just so happens that the path to doing that looks identical to the path that we take to get closer to the Lord. Whatever it is – give it up, man.
And if I can be brutally honest with y'all – a life lived for Christ is made up of difficult questions with dreadful answers. Yet whatever the answer is, we have no choice but to accept it (not just bear it as if we're just a "victim of the cruel, cold universe") and move on. We can not get caught up in this "halfway faith" stuff. Do you trust Him, or not? Because your only opportunities to grow lie in how long you're willing to be still and rest in God while watching Him layout His plan. Since we're the ones that He's laying it out through, our lives are like one big conversation with God. We make requests – He does hear them, and He does consider them. And someone told me recently that He never tells us no – only yes, or better.
When do our prayers really end?