“Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving.” Colossians 4:2 [NASB]
Paul wrote this verse is written
in the letter to the church at Colossae. He wrote it because of a heresy that
was causing problems in this Gentile Christian church. Paul wanted to expose
the heresy, stop it, and encourage the church in their faith.
Notice Paul did not write to
them and command them to keep praying, being vigilant and thankful when things
were good. He commanded these three things when things were gray and
troublesome in the Colossae church. What Paul specifically told the Colossian
Christians is very important.
He told them to devote/persist,
that means to persevere steadfastly. This command uses an active verb. Don’t
let something or someone cause you to stop praying. Don’t make your request to
God once. Be persistent. Pray and keep on praying. Once you have a relationship
with someone, you don’t just suddenly stop relating to that person. That is not
relationship. Relationship requires work from humans. It requires commitment
and determination to keep on relating. Prayer is relating with God. It is
seeking Him, speaking to Him, and asking for His will to be done. Therefore,
from the first part of this verse, Paul commanded the Christians of Colossae
should pray and keep on devoting themselves to prayer. Don’t stop when you ask
once. Keep praying because you are in a relationship with God. Keep praying
because God hasn’t answered your prayer yet. Keep praying because asking is not
the only part of prayer.
Next in this verse, Paul
said, “keeping alert in it.” Again, this is an active continuing verb. This
command means you don’t just make your request then go about your business. It
goes along with persistently devote yourselves to prayer. Pray and keep
praying. Keeping alert or being watchful is an active verb that means to be on
the alert, be awake, expect God to act upon your prayer to Him. When you pray,
God hears and will answer. Expect Him to answer and wait and keep on waiting
expecting Him to answer. This vigilance is like the watchman on the wall of a
fortress. He knows the enemy is out there and so he will keep watching so he is
not caught off guard. When we pray, we know God is there listening to us and
with that knowing-our faith in God-we can expect and should keep on expecting
that He will answer in some way. Don’t ask and then walk away. Don’t ask and
say, “Oh well, God doesn’t really love me.” He does love you. God might have a
bigger plan in action than what you asked for. Watch and He will often surprise
you in how He answers your prayers.
The final command of this
verse Paul wrote in his letter is “keeping an attitude of thanksgiving.” This
verb denotes activity, too. It comes in relation to “keeping alert.” If one
does not expect God to answer, one does not anticipate having to give thanks.
Keeping alert anticipates God answering prayer. Keeping alert gives an impetus
for us to be thankful. As we pray, we can be thankful we have a relationship
with God. As we pray, we can be thankful for what God is going to do, though we
may not know how He will do it. Devoting ourselves to prayer and being alert
should mean we are ready to give thanks when God answers and for how He
answers. Finally, being watchful and alert means we thank God afterwards for
hearing our prayers and being faithful to His relationship with us.
Without anticipation of God
hearing and answering our prayers, we don’t stay alert and watchful and we are
not thankful for whatever happens in life. Sometimes God appears not to answer
prayer. Sometimes God’s answers seem contrary to that for which we asked. Other
times, God’s answers are so beyond anything we could think or imagine, and we
are amazed at how He answered our prayers. The first scenario when it seems God
does not answer our prayers reveals that we have either not been alert after we
prayed, or we have not been thankful and so are blinded by our lack of growth
in relationship or self-centeredness. The second scenario when God seems to
answer our prayers in ways contrary to what we want or expect reveals the
smallness of our thinking and pettiness of mind. We have not grown enough in
our relationship with and faith in God to see that how God answered was for our
good, though it may have hurt when He answered because He was growing us. The
third scenario reveals a person who prayed and kept on praying, stayed alert
and watchful expecting God to answer, and was always ready to thank God for who
He is, what He was going to do, and what He did to answer our prayers. God
answers prayer in ways we expect, in ways we can’t fathom and leaves us amazed,
and sometimes waits to answer so that we can grow in our faith and relationship
to Him.
Paul taught the Colossian
Christians to steadfastly and persistently pray. He taught them to be ever
watchful and expect God to answer prayer. Keep alert, he commanded. Finally,
Paul taught the people always to be ready to give thanks to God because of His
faithfulness to you. You can do this knowing that in whatever way He answered,
His love for you and His will are perfect. God is to be thanked and praised for
being omniscient, omnipotent, loving, merciful, and faithful to you.
Let’s put this lesson of
Paul’s into perspective. This year has been one of the hardest, if not the
hardest, my family has endured in almost twenty years and possibly the whole 30
years of my family’s life. We’ve experienced eleven major life stressors this
year-illnesses, surgeries, torn ligaments, three deaths, family members walking
away from their faith, and a handful of other things. Going through each of
these stressors is hard. Going through them back to back is almost
life-crushing.
As the year unfolded, we periodically
looked back at the year at what happened. We saw where God’s hand entered into
our lives to undergird, sustain, protect, guide, and provide for us. We didn’t
enjoy going through the stressors. Some of them were downright painful to our
hearts and minds. Still, we kept up our relationship with God. We persistently
devoted ourselves to prayer daily minute by minute. We know Who reigns over all
and Who will always be victorious. We trust God completely. That is how we were
able to stand up during this year. We knew God would answer. We didn’t know
how, when, or where, just that He is faithful and would intervene. We watched
and waited for Him to answer and intervene. It did not seem at times as if He
had, but those times of looking back helped us gain perspective to see where
God had walked with us and sometimes carried us through the storms. Because of
this year, our faith in God is stronger and our relationship, love, and trust
of Him has grown exponentially.
Our faith in God made us
persistent pray-ers and made us stay alert because we knew God had a plan and
would answer. Our faith in God meant we could be thankful even before God
answered prayer because He is always faithful to His children. He always does
what is best for us though at the times it may hurt and seem not to be the best
way. Perspective often comes when you look back over that time and recognize
God’s hand intervening in places. Only then can you see a better picture of
what God was doing for you and in you.
We could thank God for what
He would do and Who we know He is. We could also thank God for how He was going
to get us through the stressors. When we think we have it all figured out, God
often surprises us with His ways because our view is so limited. He sees all
possibilities and knows what is best for us, which is to grow us closer to Him
and for us to be more like Him. Finally, we can be thankful after going through
these stressors because God led us to the stressors and through them. He did
not shelter and pamper us from hardships. God loves us enough to want us to
grow and allows trials and testing to come into our lives to mold us and make
us stronger. He does it because He is stronger than the trial and expects to
help us go through them. You see, often people can’t get through hard times
because they have forgotten to hold onto the One Who is greater than the trial.
We humans lose focus and see the storm instead of the Master of the storms.
When we lose our focus, we become like Peter who began to sink into the sea as
he looked at the magnitude of the storm instead of the love and power of the
Savior. He let troubles blind him to the power of God.
Paul did not teach the
Colossians, “Do as I say and not as I do.” He taught from his personal
experience with God. Paul had lived through persecution, flogging,
imprisonment, and a myriad of other things. Yet he could still say, “Devote
yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving.”
Paul still had a relationship with God as he went through a trial and
afterwards. He expected God to answer his prayers and so he kept alert. Paul
even praised and thanked the Lord before He answered his prayers. He was bold
as to preach while in prison knowing preaching the gospel was what got him put
into prison. Paul had learned the reality of an active alert, and thankful
relationship with God. He prayed without ceasing because he knew Who is Lord
and Master over all things and people. As some say today, Paul had an “attitude
of gratitude.” He expected to thank God and so began immediately.
Have you kept your
relationship with God during everything that has occurred in your life this
year? Have you persistently prayed? Have you actively watched for God to work
and answer your prayers? Have you thanked God for what He has done and, even
before that, for who He is and what He was going to do? Each of part of this
verse, these three commands, is active and continuous. They do not exist in
isolation from each other. I encourage you to look back on your year and see
where you kept up your prayers to God, where you actively sought Him to work,
where you stopped expecting Him to answer your prayers, and where you have
given or not given thanks for what He did. If at no other time in this year,
this time of Thanksgiving should strongly encourage us to reflect on this year
to see how we fared in our relationship with God.
Dear Lord, I am so fallible and sinful. I am selfish
and see only my needs and my ways of fixing them. Please forgive me of my sin
of self-centeredness. Forgive me of my laziness in relating to You. Forgive me
of my lack of thankfulness and praise of You. Teach me, nudge me, remind me to
devote myself to our relationship, to actively wait and watch for You, and to
keep thanking You even when it seems You are silent. I thank You now for what
You have done this year, and what You are going to do now and in this next
year. I trust You completely. Let Your will be done.
