The Sword Room

Back when I was in high school the wrestling coach used to say that training that didn’t hurt was worthless. When you are running, wrestling, weight-lifting, etc., and you feel the pain of exhaustion, you must fight the urge to quit and push through the wall to get the real benefit of the workout. You must force yourself past the limit of what you thought possible. You must almost treat the pain as an opponent to be defeated. The result is more mental and physical toughness.

Well, that was then and this is now. I no longer train until it hurts, and I have a big gut to prove it. About the only thing I do now to the point of agony is eating. This will change August 1, 2011 because I plan to cut some weight and go over and gradually get into shape running the track at the high school across the street from our home. My son Jeremy wants to get ready for the strength and conditioning workouts the first month of school over in Couer d’ Alene, Idaho. Of course it is delusional for me to think that forty years out of high school at age 58 I will be a good training partner for him. At least he will have a cell phone at the ready to call 911 if necessary.

OK, here’s the application. I just finished Paul’s letter to the Colossians. I noticed a couple references to struggling or agonizing in prayer. For I want you to know what a great conflict (agony) I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts might be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all the riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God…Epaphras, who is one of you, a bondservant of Christ, greets you, always laboring fervently (agonizing) for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God (Col. 2:1-2; 4:12).

Why pray for someone with that kind of intensity? To get into better spiritual shape? To try and bend the will of God? I say no on both counts. Then why? Personally I think it boils down to this: you work hardest at what matters most to you. And for most uf us, the spiritual edification of other believers is not what matters most to us. Remember too that Paul was sitting in prison; and since he could not travel to where the other Christians were, praying for them was about all he could do on his end.

There is no guilt trip or even exhortation being offered here. All I can say is that I have so far to go in my love for the Lord and other people. Can I get a witness?

This morning on the way into church we saw an elderly couple in the parking lot, and she had a cast on her arm. Later during the time in the service where people were invited to share prayer requests she jokingly talked about how hard it is with one arm to get your pants down far enough to go to the bathroom. Her husband hinted that he needed prayer too, seeing how he would need to cook for himself for awhile. Then followed the usual litany of requests for traveling mercies, successful job searches, and recovery from various bugs.

Prayer is a good thing, and I believe God is pleased when his children offer up even the most feeble and mundane of requests. I am sure He does not mind hearing general prayers for all the missionaries in the world and requests for Him to be with this person, be with that person, bless this one, and bless that one. No supplication is too big or too small. Aunt Edna is important to Him, and her hangnail has not escaped his notice. Even my pet peeve of prayers uttered with lip-smacking are OK to Him when offered sincerely from the heart.

It’s just that when I read Paul’s letters I get such a different picture of prayer than what we see in the average prayer meeting. I am in Colossians this week. There Paul thanks God on behalf of the Colossian believers for their faith, hope, and love, and the fruit evident in their lives as a result of their trust in Jesus and the gospel (1:3-8). Then he prays that they will be filled with the knowledge if His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that they will walk  in a manner worthy of  and pleasing to the Lord, and that they will be strengthened by His glorious power resulting in patience and long-suffering (1:9-11). In the next chapter he tells them he agonizes over them, to the end that their hearts might be encouraged and knit together in love, and that they might attain to the full assurance of understanding to the knowledge of the mystery of Christ–in Whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (2:2-3). When was the last time you heard prayers along this line, either in church or in your own life?

Are we to believe that in all the churches to whom Paul wrote–seven in all as well as the letters to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon–there was no one out of work, getting ready to go away on a trip, or suffering from a flu or cold bug? Surely there must have been an Aunt Edna with a hangnail in there somewhere. Of course there had to be, but here’s the thing. I am not sure Paul would pray for God to heal the hangnail. To him the hangnail wouldn’t be the real issue, but rather how was God going to use it to draw Aunt Edna closer to Himself and kindle a deeper desire in her to know and love Jesus and His people.

Paul’s prayers teach me that in my own life I am too caught up in my own little mundane problems, that I miss what is really important for what seems obvious to my senses. The kingdom of God is not hangnails, job searches, journey’s mercies, or recovery from owies, but righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit.

At the end of the day the content of our prayers tell us where our heads are at spiritually.

This is a valid question, unlike What would Jesus drive? and Who would Jesus bomb? Consulting one’s WWJD wrist amulet to divine the answers to the last two questions is an act of un-discerning spiritual naivety akin to voodoo. You might as well ask what Jesus would order on His pizza, or whether he would go with hot or iced latte’ (or cappuccino) at Starbucks. No one knows the answers to these questions because Scripture is silent; and where Scripture is silent one must ever keep his speculative imagination in check when considering the question of WWJD. A better question to ask would be WDJD–What did Jesus do? Or better yet, WDSSJD–What does Scripture say Jesus Did? Scripture even addresses to a limited degree the questions of WIJDN–What is Jesus doing now? and WWJDITF–What will Jesus do in the future? In fact the last of these options does give us a few hints as to whom Jesus might bomb (2 Peter 3) or what He would ride (Rev. 19).

But the question of what Jesus would pray is different: we are on solid biblical ground here. The gospels are replete with examples of Jesus’ prayers. His prayers were so striking that in Luke Eleven the disciples, after watching Him praying, asked that He teach them to pray. What follows in that passage is a summary of what He taught them, including what we call the Lord’s Prayer.

One entire chapter (John 17) is a lengthy prayer of Jesus, uttered on the night of His betrayal and recorded for our edification. Here we are on solid ground when considering the questions of WDJD and WDSSJD.

The first thing I notice is that instead of bowing His head and closing His eyes, the Lord turns his gaze heaven-ward when He prays. No big deal, just a little different from the standard ancient near east prayer posture–prostrate with face to the ground.

The next thing that strikes me is the content of the prayer. Jesus is about to be betrayed into the hands of those who hate Him, and He knows it. He is fully aware of the mocking, beatings, and crucifixion which lay ahead. And yet His prime request is that God be glorified (vv. 2-5). He prays not for the world but for the elect believers God has given Him. He prays that they might experience oneness (vv. 11, 21-23) and joy (v. 13). He does not pray that they will be removed from the hatred and hardship of the world, but rather that they will be kept from the evil one (v. 15). He asks that they will be set apart by the sanctifying power of God’s Word (vv. 17-19).

It boils down to two things: (1) the glory of God, and (2) the edification of God’s elect believers. Next time you pray think about this prayer of the Lord. Nothing wrong with coming to the Lord with personal needs. The Lord’s prayer instructs us to pray concerning daily bread and the like. We have physical and emotional needs and He cares about them with great empathy (Heb. 4:14-16). But a truly Christ-like prayer includes a desire for the glory of God and the growth of fellow believers in grace.