How important is prayer?

Epaphras... is always wresting in prayer for you... Colossians 4:12

I did a lot of acting when I was at school. How much that helped to equip me for the ministry I wouldn’t like to say - though I suspect it did help me to develop the foghorn of a voice which some suggest is one of my trademarks.

Perhaps there was something else too: though I generally had fairly big parts I never had the main one. I was never the star. Queen Gertrude in Hamlet (don’t laugh: I went to an all-boys school) was about the biggest I had.

Solid supporting roles: that was me. And perhaps it was this that gave me a liking for the lesser characters in the Bible. Of course it’s good to focus on the exploits of a Moses or an Abraham, a Peter or a Paul. 

But I think we can learn too from the Barnabases and the Timothys, the Hezekiahs and the Micahs. Even dear old Azariah son of Oded (2 Chronicles 15 in case you’ve forgotten) was once a real blessing to me. And I always smile fondly when I read the greeting of Tertius (“who wrote this letter”, Romans 16:22) as he gives us a cheery wave over the span of two thousand years.

A special favourite is Paul’s friend Epaphras. He pops up just three times in Paul’s letters: little more than a mention, really. But Paul says something which challenges and inspires me: he was “always wrestling in prayer” for the Colossian Christians.

Wrestling in prayer: I love the expression. It conjures up an image of veins standing out on the neck, of sweat dripping from the brow. Effort. Work. Struggle. Literally it could be translated agonising.

And I find myself asking, When did I last do that? Indeed, have I ever done that?

In Christian circles you hear a lot about praying: “turning to the Lord in prayer” or “coming to God in prayer”. But “wrestling in prayer”: how comfortable are we with that? Perhaps it’s something we only associate with times of crisis and desperation, when we feel that all else has failed us and only prayer is left.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that - various Bible characters wrestled in prayer at crucial points in their lives. Jacob literally wrestled all night with the mysterious stranger by the Jabbok River (Genesis 32). When the stranger asked to be released, Jacob responded with one of the most awe-inspiring cries in the whole Bible, a cry to make the back of your neck prickle: “I will not let you go until you bless me!” (Can you hear him?) Oh for such tenacity in prayer!

And then there’s poor Hannah. All right, the word wrestle isn’t used. But she was certainly agonising over her childlessness - so much so that the old priest Eli took her to be drunk (1 Samuel 1).

Supremely of course there is Jesus himself in Gethsemane, when his sweat came “like great drops of blood”.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I look at these examples and somehow I feel very small. What do I know - really know - about prayer?

But here’s an interesting thing... When Paul speaks of Epaphras he doesn’t suggest any kind of crisis or turning point in his life: on the contrary, he explicitly states that Epaphras was always wrestling in prayer for others. It was, apparently, part of the normal pattern of his spiritual life. In some ways that makes me feel smaller still.

But why would God ever want us to pray in this way? Isn’t he a generous and bountiful giver? Can blessings only be squeezed out of him, like blood out of a stone? The answer is that while God does indeed delight to give to his children, it is also his desire to deepen and stretch us.

So, no cheap and easy blessings, no coin-in-the-slot prayers. Shallow Christians are no use to him.

Well, this is all very well. But there’s a problem: wrestling in prayer isn’t something you can switch on at will: “Mmm, perhaps I’ll do a bit of wrestling in prayer today - after I’ve read the papers, watched EastEnders and put the cat out, of course...” It just doesn’t work like that. We can’t magic up this kind of prayer by sheer will-power.

So what are we to do?

Here’s a practical suggestion. Why not start a prayer-book - a personal notebook to keep with your Bible? Write down two or three things where you really long to see answers. And then commit yourself to pray doggedly and persistently until an answer (it could be No, of course) is given.

Perhaps, come to think of it, this is what Paul meant by prayer Epaphras-style. It may not have the drama and intensity of some of those other examples - but it’s a start, at least.

Lord God, please deepen and intensify my prayer-life! Give me a greater hunger and thirst after you. Amen.