Remaining Steadfast in Prayer

WE ARE GRATEFUL TO HAVE A GUEST WRITER THIS WEEK, PASTOR JAMES JOHNSON. JAMES HAS BEEN IN MINISTRY FOR OVER TWENTY YEAR, serving AT CHURCHES ALL OVER THE SOUTHEAST. He IS MARRIED TO HIS BEAUTIFUL WIFE, KAREN. THEY HAVE TWO CHILDREN, ANDY AND CLARA. JAMES HAS A HEART FOR COACHING AND EQUIPPING LEADERS TO PURSUE MINISTRY EXCELLENCE FOR THE GLORY OF GOD.

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 “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.”

- Colossians 4:2

I want to do this but, I have a problem. My heart is not the loveliest of places, and sometimes it’s downright nasty and selfish. I don’t watch what I allow to corrupt it. I become lazy, and I am filled with an ungrateful attitude. What I truly want in my heart is to satisfy all the desires that please my senses. That’s my flesh talking. 

But when I pray, and keep on praying, and truly talk to God, my desires begin to melt like hot wax. At first, they are hard and immovable. Then they become soft and pliable, still there, lurking about in the crevices of my soul. I continue to pray asking God to remove all the residue of the selfish wax that remains. I light the wick of prayer and begin to talk to God and He begins to burn off what is left.

It takes time, hours, days, sometimes weeks. The investment is anguishing!

Then it’s gone, melted away, my desires have now emptied and what remains is a space for God to fill.

I experienced this first in Bible college. One of my professors took us to the chapel for class. The day’s assignment, don’t move until you hear from God. Wait, what?

Five minutes passed, then ten minutes, come on God I’ve got stuff to do. Thirty minutes then forty-five minutes passed. As I quieted my mind and filled my heart with Scripture (we could only have our Bible, a notebook, and something to write with) the presence of the Lord filled my heart.

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, this is not a magical formula, but it is an encouragement to simply talk to God, and pray. Prayer is an investment of time and energy.

George Mueller, one of the great prayer warriors of the nineteenth century said this, “After having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, or quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only then really began to pray.”

For a man who had over fifty thousand answered prayers to make this claim carries massive weight in our culture of “fast everything”! We get so bent out of shape when our food is delivered to us slowly, when the bank teller leisurely cashes our check, and oh don’t get me started with the car line to pick up my kids from school. 

I so desperately want my desires to be God’s desires and I want to be devoted to prayer like the Scriptures teach. Yet, for my heart to change, I must be the watchman of my heart, and I must be willing to invest in the discipline of prayer. Every day I must wait patiently on the Lord, allowing my mind to get calm, my heart to be cleaned, and my soul to be filled, then my heart will worship and thanksgiving will result.

This is the devotion that the apostle Paul was talking about in Colossians chapter 4. Be steadfast in prayer, God is speaking, can you quite your heart long enough to hear him? 

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