Struggling and Striving in Prayer

Does “pray without ceasing” mean a kind of lifestyle in which we honor God, but not specifically or deliberately?  Does it mean a kind of acknowledgement of God in which we call Him Lord and say that our lives are lived as a constant prayer, or does it rather mean that our lives are soaked in prayer of all types, both silent, breathed prayers, deliberate prayers, heartfelt groanings to the Lord, and shared prayer times with brothers and sister?  I think it is definitely the latter.

I’m concerned that the notion that some have of what it means to pray without ceasing is a kind of cop-out.  It is a way of saying that, though we don’t pray nearly as often or as much as we ought to, we really are praying all of the time because we are Christian people and our whole lives are really a prayer.  I believe there is some truth to the notion that our whole lives become prayerful as the Holy Spirit fills every part of us and permeates all that we do.  But I don’t believe that this becomes an auto-pilot situation.  It is harmful, I believe, to think that there is a place in our Christian lives in which we are automatically pleasing God, that we need no longer deliberately seek Him, study the scriptures to get to know Him better, worship Him, and pray fervently for all that we depend on Him for, which is everything. 

I don’t think deliberate, thoughtful prayer time is for beginners, and then the mature saints move into an automatic kind of life which is always blessed by God without seeking Him in prayer and supplication.  Why don’t I believe this?  Because the Biblical witness runs counter to it. 

Jas 5:16  Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

What is fervent prayer?  I think it is more than just a lifestyle prayer.  I believe it is more than just a silent, thankful heart expressing itself throughout the day, though that is a good attitude.  Fervency is actively intentional.  Praying for one another is actively intentional.  It is something to strive toward. 

Col 4:12  Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.

Is struggling in prayer an experience we have regularly?  It is if we realize how much we need Jesus, and how incapable of living life without Him we truly are. 

Rom 15:30  I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf,

Again, Paul calls the saints to strive together with Him in prayer.  Our prayer life is to be active.  It is even a struggle sometimes.   Good things come  through the type of prayer that the Bible calls struggling or striving in prayer.  This is something we do when the Spirit of God directs our hearts in prayer to Him in intense ways.  It may be for others or it may be for ourselves.   Recall the way that Paul described His prayer for his thorn in the flesh:

2Co 12:8  Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.

Though the thorn was not removed, the Lord revealed Himself clearly to Paul about the nature and outcome of his thorn.  His prayer was answered in a clear way that gave Paul peace in his struggle.   Do we want our prayers answered in this clear, Christ-glorifying way?  Then we should plead, strive, and struggle in prayer. 

It is the same old tune you’ve heard many times before: we need to pray more.  But just because we’ve heard it many, many times already doesn’t make it any less valid.  I’m as prone as the next person to tiring of hearing the same thing over and over again.  But there is not one of us who has made it to such a place in our lives where there is not more of a need for prayer each and every day.  We have an enemy who would love to disrupt our praying.  He would love for us to be content with trivial and transient praying that we like to refer to as “prayer without ceasing.”  He would love for us to dismiss the old-fashioned notion of deliberate times of prayer in which we seek God and lay our hearts before Him in total surrender.  He would love for us to think of a prayer closet and regular time spent in it as a quaint notion favored only by Puritans and really old people.   But remember, it wasn’t old Mr. White Hair that recommended our spending solitary time with the Lord.  It was Christ Himself.  And Jesus modeled a deliberate, regular prayer habit for us.  If anyone could say that he was so connected to God that he didn’t need to spend actual special time in prayer, it would surely be Jesus, right?  Yet we read over and over of Him taking time away from others to seek the Lord in prayer (Matt. 14:23, Mark 14:35, Luke 9:18, Luke 9:28, Luke 11:1, to name a few.)  Do we need more deliberate, intentional prayer than Jesus, or less? 

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”  What does that say for those who feel like their hunger has been nicely sated, that their thirst has been well and truly slaked, thank you very much?  As long as we live on this earth, we will never have the total and complete connection with the Lord that we will one day enjoy if we are His children.  So how could we not live our lives thirsting for more and more of Him?  If nothing else, our prayer times should be a time of hungering and desiring Him, yearning to draw nearer, struggling that we could leave the corruption that clings so closely to us and be forever separated from sin and totally united to Him.  And we long to see our loved ones living for Him as well, so we struggle in prayer for their souls.  We struggle and strive in our prayers.  We are filled with the precious Holy Spirit as we long for Him, as we ask God for Him, so our prayer time is a sweet time of fellowship as well, but we will still experience the struggle to pray as we ought.  To pray without ceasing is not a small thing.  To pray without ceasing is not the lame thing that it too often becomes in our casual conversation.  It is a lifestyle, true.  But it is an active striving with sweet rewards as we long for the Lord and are blessed by Him as we come to Him more and more.