What are you like at wrestling in prayer?

Wrestling is a strange image of prayer. If you read some of the pieces written about prayer today, it seems even more strange.

They tell us (rightly) that prayer is about intimacy and relationship, about knowing God. The Bible’s image of wrestling suggests instead conflict and hard work. It may be an intimate way to fight, but it isn’t sweet. This kind of fighting is sweaty, painful – and all about endurance.

Knowing God

Prayer, I’ve heard good Reformed people say recently, isn’t about a list of requests but is about knowing God. I don’t want to argue with any of them. Prayer is the most amazing gift, a precious means of drawing close to God in rejoicing and lament and aligning our will to His. It’s a space in which we can meditate on the mind-blowing truths of Scripture and know our hearts examined and expanded. But prayer is also about asking for things, for ourselves, and (perhaps especially) for others.

The Scriptures are full of requests, whether for daily bread provision or for wisdom for leaders, for the unity of the church, or for the Kingdom to come, as hearts and minds might grasp the height and depth and breadth of God’s love. This is exactly what Jesus does in John 17, just hours before His death. And these are prayers that we need to keep on praying, again and again and again because this is how God has promised that He will work.

Good medicine

Most of us probably know all this already, but we’re not great at doing it. It’s a sad irony that in our hyper-connected and information-glutted world, we seem to be more self-orientated than ever. The result of social media and rolling news programmes has not given the world greater concern for others, but a deep neuroticism about the self.

This disease of self-interest infects the church when we become preoccupied with our individual well-being and spiritual development, or the few activities we are personally involved in. Intercession is a medicine God has given us to treat this illness. When we pray the Lord’s prayers for those further afield – whether Christians we will never meet in countries far away, or those in our churches who are not in our inner circle – our vision is extended and our own concerns shrink. The KJV version of Luke 1.51 speaks of those who are proud in ‘the imagination of their hearts’. Biblical intercession trains the imagination in God’s ways. As you think of a person or a situation and then plead for Jesus to be glorified in specific ways, God’s saving purposes come into sharper focus. His concerns become increasingly yours.

No excuses…

So, in this lockdown period when there is relatively little we can do practically with and for others, there’s so much we can pray about. We’ve no excuses for not praying or for praying with holy-sounding generalities or for praying only about those very near to us. Mission agencies have downloadable prayer resources and online prayer gatherings. If your church doesn’t produce a prayer diary, then ask friends and your leaders what you can pray about. When they gather to pray, online or in person, be there. Plan to pray. Then, when you are out and about, pray for your neighbours, the person who serves you in the corner shop, the families you see walking to school. As you hear the news, pray for political leaders and those in distress and difficulty. Taking every thought captive for Christ, must mean, at least to some degree, turning thoughts into prayers. It is unashamedly a wrestling work, but a joy and delight, too.