Colossians 1:5b-12 | The Message
The Message is as true among you today as when you first heard it. It doesn’t diminish or weaken over time. It’s the same all over the world. The Message bears fruit and gets larger and stronger, just as it has in you. From the very first day you heard and recognized the truth of what God is doing, you’ve been hungry for more. It’s as vigorous in you now as when you learned it from our friend and close associate Epaphras. He is one reliable worker for Christ! I could always depend on him. He’s the one who told us how thoroughly love had been worked into your lives by the Spirit.
Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven’t stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works. We pray that you’ll live well for the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard. As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.
Rather than the ‘back-and-forth’ explaining-as-I-go-along thing I’ve been doing lately, I elected today to read the whole reading at once because I want to talk about it as a whole. Our subject is, obviously, prayer. Now, we are Christians, we are church-goers, we know how to pray – right? I don’t want to embarrass anyone, so I’m not asking you to answer out loud, but how much time do you actually spend in prayer? For a couple of you I would guess the answer is “a fair amount,” but for many others of us, it might be, “really not that much.” As far as sit-down-and-pay-attention-to-what-you’re-doing prayer, I’d have to put myself into the ‘not so much’ category. I’m more the talking-all-day-as-I-go-along kind of pray-er. I know I need to do more stop-and-listening than I do.
I think that what first drew me to this scripture was Paul saying that ... from the first day we heard of you, we haven’t stopped praying for you. That’s a lot of praying, folks. That’s not just drive-by praying – that’s stop-and-think-about-it praying. Conscious, mindful, caring praying. And I hope you understand that there is always someone out there praying for you. I learned that when I was going through cancer. Total strangers were praying for me. I didn’t ask them to do so – they just heard I needed prayer and they prayed. There are whole communities of people who spend their lives praying for others. There are people you’ve never heard of praying for this church right now.
Hilary tells a story of when he was a teenager - he and some friends were out being stupid one night and got into a pretty serious car wreck – but NO ONE was injured. The next day he told his mother what had happened and she told him that in the middle of the night she was awakened from a sound sleep and impelled to pray for him. They worked it out that it was at the time of the wreck. Stories like these are actually pretty common. Sometimes I think we only make it through the day because someone, somewhere is praying.
The other phrase that really strikes me is Paul’s prayer that ... as you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. You mean it’s not enough to say I’m a believer – I’m actually supposed to be learning and doing as well? And how do we learn what to do? We pray – then we listen.
Hilary and I were discussing this reading and we ended up talking about Praxis. That is a Greek word used most often in educational philosophy – not very common in ordinary conversation – yet it is something we all do to some extent or another. We think about something, we do it, we learn from our action (hopefully) and we think about it some more.
In a discussion of prayer, praxis means that we meditate/contemplate/pray about something and then we are moved in some way, by our meditation, to act. And then after acting, we come back and pray/contemplate/meditate some more – this time including the actions we have just taken. This goes on - back and forth – first one, then the other: prayer leads to action leads to more prayer leads to more action – and we grow and learn as we go. This is pretty much what the New Testament Letter of James means when it talks about faith vs. works – the question of which is of the greater importance. It’s not an either/or, says James - you simply can’t have one without the other – faith leads to works leads to faith leads to works, etc., etc... Action with no prayer beforehand can often go awry. Prayer with no action is simply navel-gazing – not much help to anyone.
What Paul is talking about in this scripture is the marriage of the two and the perfect joy that comes from that marriage – making us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that God has for us.
I think that we will talk a bit over the next few weeks about prayer/meditation. This journey we are on as a church is way too important to try to do it on our own. We need lots of prayer – and lots of listening – lots of spending time with God – if we are going to successfully transition from what we are to what we one day can be – in God’s will for us.
I think that what first drew me to this scripture was Paul saying that ... from the first day we heard of you, we haven’t stopped praying for you. That’s a lot of praying, folks. That’s not just drive-by praying – that’s stop-and-think-about-it praying. Conscious, mindful, caring praying. And I hope you understand that there is always someone out there praying for you. I learned that when I was going through cancer. Total strangers were praying for me. I didn’t ask them to do so – they just heard I needed prayer and they prayed. There are whole communities of people who spend their lives praying for others. There are people you’ve never heard of praying for this church right now.
Hilary tells a story of when he was a teenager - he and some friends were out being stupid one night and got into a pretty serious car wreck – but NO ONE was injured. The next day he told his mother what had happened and she told him that in the middle of the night she was awakened from a sound sleep and impelled to pray for him. They worked it out that it was at the time of the wreck. Stories like these are actually pretty common. Sometimes I think we only make it through the day because someone, somewhere is praying.
The other phrase that really strikes me is Paul’s prayer that ... as you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. You mean it’s not enough to say I’m a believer – I’m actually supposed to be learning and doing as well? And how do we learn what to do? We pray – then we listen.
Hilary and I were discussing this reading and we ended up talking about Praxis. That is a Greek word used most often in educational philosophy – not very common in ordinary conversation – yet it is something we all do to some extent or another. We think about something, we do it, we learn from our action (hopefully) and we think about it some more.
In a discussion of prayer, praxis means that we meditate/contemplate/pray about something and then we are moved in some way, by our meditation, to act. And then after acting, we come back and pray/contemplate/meditate some more – this time including the actions we have just taken. This goes on - back and forth – first one, then the other: prayer leads to action leads to more prayer leads to more action – and we grow and learn as we go. This is pretty much what the New Testament Letter of James means when it talks about faith vs. works – the question of which is of the greater importance. It’s not an either/or, says James - you simply can’t have one without the other – faith leads to works leads to faith leads to works, etc., etc... Action with no prayer beforehand can often go awry. Prayer with no action is simply navel-gazing – not much help to anyone.
What Paul is talking about in this scripture is the marriage of the two and the perfect joy that comes from that marriage – making us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that God has for us.
I think that we will talk a bit over the next few weeks about prayer/meditation. This journey we are on as a church is way too important to try to do it on our own. We need lots of prayer – and lots of listening – lots of spending time with God – if we are going to successfully transition from what we are to what we one day can be – in God’s will for us.
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