But the prayers of Epaphras for his brothers and sisters in the Colossian church add extra substance and ballast to our requests. His friend, the apostle Paul, bears witness to the believers in Colossae that “he is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured.” (Col. 4:12)
Epaphras knows them well. He is one of them. Knows all the contours of their daily lives. Can picture them in his mind’s eye, their homes, their workplaces. Knows the troubled relationships, knows the empty cupboards. And in the light of all he knows - and no doubt praying about the details, too - he prays as Paul reports.
He isn’t hitting the highlights because he doesn’t know the details. Rather, he is deliberately asking the Lord for what will be most necessary, fundamental and unifying in their experience of the Lord Jesus. And what will then, in turn, most commend the Saviour to others, as they see lives that have been liberated and stabilised and filled with good fruit.
Ephaphras hasn’t taken a route that few others traverse in prayer. Paul himself in the early part of the same letter prays in very similar, expanded terms:
“We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father…”
Such prayer, for others and also for ourselves, is demanding and often draining. It is about more than words; Epaphras wrestles in prayer for them. He agonises over them, coupling his loving concern with confidence in the Lord and his work.
We fight distractions, always it seems, but we also battle against unseen hindrances, and not only the spiritual constrictions in our own soul. Asking the Lord for this kind of progress in Christian maturity is going toe-to-toe with all that wish to see the Lord’s work collapse and Christians crumble into dust. Praying like this demands the full affection and attention of our hearts and the Spirit’s energies against evil and chaos.
We cannot expect to emerge from such wrestling unscathed and unmarked. Our resources will, at times, be severely depleted and our hearts spent. There are watershed moments as we intercede for others. But we will bear on our souls something of the imprint of Christ.
And that is entirely appropriate because this kind of praying is what our Lord is seen to do in the Gospels: in wilderness places, in the Upper Room, in the gathered darkness of Gethsemane. And, now, at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven, ever living to pray for us.
May the Lord help us to pray for each other, too.
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Great Shepherd of Thy people, hear;
Thy presence now display;
As Thou has given a place for prayer,
So give us hearts to pray.
Show us some token of Thy love,
Our fainting hope to raise;
And pour Thy blessing from above,
That we may render praise.
Within these walls let holy peace,
And love and concord dwell;
Here give the troubled conscience ease,
The wounded spirit heal.
May we in faith receive Thy Word,
In faith present our prayers,
And in the presence of our Lord,
Unburden all our cares.
The hearing ear, the seeing eye,
The contrite heart bestow:
And shine upon us from on high,
That we in grace may grow.
(John Newton, 1725-1807)
