-'Devoted' is a picture of an attendant who will not leave the side of the one to whom they are attending. Or a faithful nurse - they are paying attention to the one(s) in their care, constantly close at hand. It is relatively easy to identify that to which a person is devoted by what they do keep close at hand, is it not? Their spouse perhaps? Their kids? Or a friend? Their job. their smartphone. an app. The remote? Social media? A cup or bottle or pack or can of something that you just cannot do without? A Bible? Or another book? A cherished possession? Our work or career? What is it that gets your attention? So many things we can keep close at hand - is prayer one of them?
-Watching is a picture of a guard standing watch over a parapet, similarly vigilant and attentive lest he miss something. The challenge for us is not just keeping prayer close at hand, it is paying attention while we do pray, because we all have chronic ADD when it comes to prayer. It not only fails to get our attention in the first place, it fails to keep our attention when it manages to get our attention. Trying to talk to the invisible God Who is unheard as well as unseen is a sure recipe for distraction, for mind-creep. Thoughts of other things creep in and cascade over my brain, washing away my focus. Cares and concerns for the day. Plans. Memories. Things I’ve done. Things I need to do. Random thoughts out of left field - you name it. Then there’s the enemy of our souls who would distract us all he can from engaging in the one thing against which he cannot prevail. Mary had the right idea, just sitting there, paying attention to Jesus, but it can be so much harder, can it not, to do that when He’s not physically there right in front of us. Martha couldn’t even pull it off with the Lord right there in her living room (yes, I know she was in the kitchen but surely theirs was an open-concept floor plan - she could see him, but her to-do list still got the best of her). Jesus does offer some insight for us in this regard. He talks about a prayer closet, an inner room (Matthew 6.6) - you and I need to find aloneness somewhere, somehow. Jesus Himself frequently prayed in isolation (Matthew 14.23, Luke 5.16, 9.18, 22.41). Part of our due diligence and vigilance in prayer is to be doing what we must do to minimize and eliminate distractions. Visual distractions are the worst (one reason to close your eyes?). Interruptions. You need to find a place as well as a time that will be conducive to aloneness, to having extended conversations with your Best Friend in Heaven. Jesus often prayed early in the morning or at night - not only did those times minimize external distractions, they kept down the internal noise as well. Our days tend to crash upon the shore of our lives like a hurricane, with sudden and irresistable force, demanding our attention. Gotta get to work, gotta get to school, to class, get the kids going, get the spouse going, gotta get going on the house, the chores, the yard, the sports. Hopefully the storm passes and the fury of our days recedes to a place of calm sometime in the evening. But these are the times when we can and should try to pull away for extended time with our Best Friend. Before the day begins, or (and?) after it is over. We prioritize and make time for so many other things, surely we can and must do this. Too often we sleep as late as we can, jump out of bed and hurl ourselves headlong into our days, then 12-14 hours later we collapse on the couch too exhausted to think about having a meaningful conversation with anyone much less with our Best Friend (Who again is unseen and therefore requires additional focus and concetration)(but Who also happens to be the King of the universe and Who incindentally has been waiting all day to talk with us). We watch a bit of mindless frippery on tv and head to bed, ending our day unengaged and unchanged. These are the days of our lives, and they do indeed pass like sands through an hourglass. The tyranny of the urgent kidnaps our days and our lives and the important goes AWOL, or rather absent WITH leave as we leave it consigned to the back burner, something we know we should do but never really getting around to it or giving it our full attention.
-And here is where we fail ultimately. We fail to prioritize prayer. We relegate it to second class status in our lives, like an extra credit assignment, something nice and good if we can get around to it but a little bit cramped and inconvenient perhaps and not too exciting and certainly not indispensible. A little dab’ll do ya. We add a little dash of prayer for favor, a smidgen of thanksgiving here and there while our lives and the world keep spinning on, unchanged and unaffected by the supernatural forces of Heaven waiting to be unleashed in and through God’s people. Our Savior remains a valued acquaintance perhaps, handy in a pinch, and we’ll get to know Him better someday. Be devoting yourselves to prayer, Paul says. Be saturated with prayer. Spend extended time talking with and getting to know He-Who-would-be-your-Best-Friend (He already knows your every quirk and every hairy intimate detail of your life and still really really likes you! He is the One Who designed you in the first place!). Come away and draw near and bask in His presence where there is fulness of joy. Drink deep from the Fountain of His delights, of His Living Water and find grace and faith and strength to overcome and move mountains. Change the world and be forever changed. Change the course of history - because the effective prayer of one who is right with God does indeed accomplish much, much more than we can even imagine! This is why we should be devoted to prayer.
-And we must not lose sight of that last word Paul includes in this imperative: thanksgiving. A game-changer, this. One word which captures so well the essence of what should be our posture towards our Master, towards our God Who made us and saved us. Thank you. (I know that’s two words but in the Greek and in most other languages it’s one word). Thank you, Lord. This morsel-sized phrase is so core to joy and to triumphant living in a broken world. Paying attention to giving thanks in all things not only gives appropriate credit where credit is so appropriately due, but it cultivates an immediate awareness of God’s faithful work and goodness in our lives. It acknowledges Him, and keeps us in tune with the truth that all things are from Him and through Him and for Him. Thanksgiving changes our praying from a tendency to focus on what I want and don’t have to one of contentment. Not resignation, but a satisfaction that springs out of an awareness that God does and will fully supply everything I need and if I don’t have something then either God WILL provide it or else I don’t need it but in any event I have enough. All that I need. And so by all means I need to be asking since I do not have because I do not ask, but gratitude affirms God’s gracious and full provision.
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