Play the Long Game in Prayer
Colossians 1:9 Since the day we heard these things about you, we have continued praying for you. This is what we pray: that God will make you completely sure of what he wants by giving you all the wisdom and spiritual understanding you need.
How easily do you give up in prayer? When the answer doesn’t come, when life stays hard, when you feel like God’s gone quiet – do you persist, or do you simply stop asking?
You may have heard me say this before, but I’ll say it again: I used to hate Christians – all goody-two-shoes, holier-than-thou Bible-bashers. But when, not long after seriously contemplating suicide, I encountered the amazing love of God in Jesus Christ … I discovered that one couple had been praying for me for eighteen years.
I was a seriously hard case, yet they didn’t stop praying. And … here we are. The Apostle Paul once wrote this to the believers in Colossae – people he’d never even met:
Colossians 1:9 Since the day we heard these things about you, we have continued praying for you. This is what we pray: that God will make you completely sure of what he wants by giving you all the wisdom and spiritual understanding you need.
Think about that. Since the day we heard these things about you. Paul didn’t pray once and move on. He kept at it – day after day – asking God to fill them with His will, wisdom, and Spirit.
That’s one of the most powerful prayers you can ever pray – not for comfort or convenience, but for understanding, direction, and spiritual insight. Because when you know God’s will and walk in His wisdom, fruitfulness naturally follows.
So don’t give up. When you’re praying for someone – a wayward child, the salvation of a loved one, the restoration of a relationship – keep going. When you’re praying for your own breakthrough – a deeper relationship with God, a financial challenge, a health problem – stay at it.
God’s timing inevitably isn’t ours – but His answers are always worth the wait.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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