The Impact of Prayer on Maturity
"Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. He is always wrestling for you in his prayers, so that you can stand mature and fully assured in everything God wills."
Colossians 4:12
SEASONAL APPROPRIATENESS
I mentioned in last week's letter that I'm posting regular videos to the Focustsoul Network. These are 2-5 minutes long and each hits on a key point around spiritual formation, maturity, and/or making space to encounter God. You need to join Focustsoul to see the videos and at $5/month to join and get the phone app, it is a great value. To give you an inside peak, I am posting one of the videos here. In this one I touch on the idea of seasons of life and encourage us to recognize what season we are in and act appropriately. I was freezing in the process (for a Texan-smile). Enjoy:
PRAYER & MATURITY
I've written much about maturity in these letters but haven't touched much on the role of prayer until now. In Colossians 4:2 (quoted above), Paul shares about Epaphras' "wrestling in prayer" on their behalf. The goal, at least part of it, is their maturity. Let's reflect on that.
Here are 8 takeaways from this verse:
Praying for those we know can be an effective means in their maturation process. This means we play an important role in the growth of those in our circles. How much of this focus is a part of your prayer life?
Understanding this helps us to grow in humility since our growth and maturity is not just about my efforts and not even just about me and God. I owe my growth in part to the prayers of those in my circle.
God invites us to partner with him in the growth of his people. This is a gift to us and to those we pray for and is part of our purpose.
This highlights our interdependence. My prayers impact those I know, and their prayers impact me. We are on this journey together and need each other. This challenges anyone who is pretending to live the Christian life apart from community. Our Western focus on autonomy and total independence/freedom is anti-biblical and harmful. Of course, extreme forms of collectivism are harmful as well. The Bible values private property, for example, but going too far on the communal side is not a problem for most Westerners.
This encourages a deeper gratitude. Since our growth and maturity is connected to those who are praying for me, my gratitude expands to both God and those praying, many of whom I may not even know.
"Wrestling" implies a significant effort was exerted by Epaphras. This isn't an afterthought tossed God's direction. Wrestling speaks of perseverance, repetition, sweat, emotion, care, love, and commitment.
I must confess this is convicting since it does not reflect my practice. If Paul was writing about me, he would not use those words to describe my prayers. Interestingly, he doesn't write it about everyone, so one could make a case that certain people are called to this kind of prayer, but more likely is that Epaphras could not help but pray because of his deep love for the Colossians. He wasn't with them in person to do acts of service, so he did what he could. I think this applies to all of us. Whether we are with people or not, we can pray for them. If we are physically present, we can do more, but not less. If you, like me, haven't developed your muscles in this area, I encourage you to take a couple of action steps. One is to pray for a heart of prayer. Another is to take some time and make space to encounter God and allow him to move your heart into deeper love for those you know. Lastly, we just need to do it. As Rolheiser says, the biggest part of prayer is showing up.
Lastly, I have referred to this throughout these points, but to make it explicit, Paul says that Epaphras is "one of you"; he was from Colossae. He knew them and loved them; they were "his people". Whether we need to pray for the world in this way is not covered in this verse, but the call to pray for those who are "our people" is unmistakable. Let's step up and fill this gap for those we know and love.
CONCLUSION
The danger in a word like this is that you walk away feeling inappropriate shame or guilt. I read this verse and felt convicted. As I reflected, I saw that I have been missing out. God invites us into partnership and allows us the privilege of helping people grow towards maturity. It challenges many of our values and practices.
I pray we don't wallow in shame or guilt or inaction but instead make space to be with Jesus and let him lead us. Perhaps this is a season of growth for us in this area, or maybe we are to focus otherwise in these days. He knows what is best and will guide us by his Spirit, his Word, his people, and circumstances. May we have ears to hear.
N.N. TALEB
Although it isn't for everyone, maybe not even for most, I have found the writing of Nassim Nicholas Taleb—Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Antifragile, Skin in the Game—to be challenging, fascinating, important, and provocative. He has forced me to rethink many things and helped clarify many concepts I intuitively understood but couldn't articulate. I haven't mentioned many non-formation books in these letters, but I'm almost done with the third of these books and can't help but highlight Taleb's thinking. Again, they are not for everyone, but since I don't know most of the people reading this letter personally, I'll put it out there and let you decide for yourself.
"A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses."
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer