Gluten Free & God Seeking: From the Life-Study of Colossians

Sunday, March 23, 2014

From the Life-Study of Colossians - What Happens When We Pray?

Why pray? When I was growing up, prayer wasn't a fun thing to do, especially when I had to pray something like ten Our Fathers and five Hail Marys in penance for my sins. For years prayer was mechanical and punitive. I really didn't know what it was about. And on the wall outside my bedroom was the quote--Prayer Changes Things, but I didn't know how.

Even after I was saved, I didn't pray much. Maybe before dinner but nothing personal. But when I was a sophomore in high school, I started talking to God. Here's how it happened. When I was at my grandparent's farm I used to like to walk along the fields, and at that time in my life I was going through some major life events.

With the sky spreading above me and the beauty of nature surrounding me, it just opened my heart, and one day I just started talking to God about everything. Looking back I don't even think I would have told anyone I was praying on those walks.

Since that time I have grown in both my understanding and experience of prayer. There are a lot of lessons to learn here. Over the years I have learned a lot about prayer by simply praying with others. And I've been greatly helped by the writings of both Watchman Nee and Witness Lee on prayer. A few outstanding books that come to mind are: The Prayer Ministry of the Church and Lessons on Prayer. And whenever a verse is on prayer in a particular Life-Study, Witness Lee shares some practical experiences and fellowship (you'll see an example of that below).

I also like to journal some of my prayers. Several years ago my friend Patty's mom showed me a shelf filled with her prayer journals. She had been a missionary in Madagascar when Patty was little, and her mother told me she liked to record her prayers and also any answers. Years after that when a teacher gave me a journal as a gift, I started writing my prayers in it.

This week I read a striking section in Chapter 39 of the Life-Study of Colossians on prayer. Colossians has a few verses on prayer; in chapter 4 Paul writes--"Persevere in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving." Anyway in this section Witness Lee wonderfully connects prayer in Colossians to living Christ in Philippians 1:19. This verse says, "For to me to live is Christ…." These excerpts come from pages 334-335:

"If you would experience Christ and live Him, we need to remain in an atmosphere of prayer. Many of us can testify that by prayer we are brought into the spirit, where we are one with the Lord and take Him as our life. This experience is so precious that when we are enjoying it, we do not want it to end….However, as soon as our time of prayer is over, much of the time we revert to our natural way of living. We are no longer in an atmosphere of prayer. ...When we pray ourselves into the spirit, we are one with the Lord, we enjoy His presence, and we spontaneously live Him". (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of Colossians. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1979, Print).

A lot of times I only think of praying because I need answers. But I don't always see that bigger than that answer is prayer brings me into touch with the living Lord. And like it says in this chapter, we spontaneously receive the grace to express the Lord in all the situations we're going through each day. And by the way, a lot of my talking to the Lord I still do on my walks!