Devote yourself to prayer

I'm reading more than one book at a time, because that's just how I roll. One of them talked about reading a verse by focusing on one word a day. I know, crazy right? But he gave an example of what he was thinking about each day during that word, and basically "journaled" through each day. For him, he came to great realizations and deeper meanings of the words and verses! So, because I've never done that, I am trying it out right now.

Colossians 4:2, "Devote yourself to prayer, being watchful and thankful."

I looked up a few other versions of it and liked this one best in NIV.


Day one (yesterday): Devote.

Long story short, one of my coworkers said yesterday, "I'm willing to listen to anyone who devotes their life to something," in the context that he goes to a Buddhist temple to meditate every Sunday, but is not a Buddhist. Although I was unable to talk to him about it more, because we were at work, my thought process was this: Obviously if an Olympic gymnast told me about their life, their training, and their advice, I would listen to them far above someone who just does gymnastics for fun, because that Olympian has devoted their whole life to it. Out of context of this verse, I obviously want my life devoted to the Lord, and I want people to see it, and maybe someone, like my coworker, will listen to me because they see how important it is to me.

In context of this verse, devoting yourself to prayer means you will see more results, see more answers, and get to know God more. Obviously other spiritual disciplines are just as important, it's not that you have to devote all your time to praying or else there would be no time for anything else, but the cool thing about prayer is that you can be doing it all the time. Even during other spiritual disciplines!

I combined the word, "yourself" with yesterday because it turns out that it's more of an implied word - it isn't used in other translations, nor does it have a correlating Greek word which it was directly translated from. I thought about it anyways, and came up with nothing. Haha.

Day two: to prayer.

In the book I read, he actually took one day for the small words too, but again, I couldn't think of much for just the word "to." In the Greek words for this part of the verse, devoting yourself to prayer, it says, "literally, to interact with the Lord by switching human wishes / ideas for His wishes as He imparts faith." Or, the Greek definition: exchanges of wishes. This is so interesting! I think it's so true. My prayer, for example, is sometimes for God to help me get a new job. Now. I'm being specific and persistent here. Lol. But, ultimately I want what God wants for me. I want His will to be done, and I know His timing is better than mine, so in the process of praying for what I want, He is also putting it in my heart for things to do while I'm waiting. Ways to serve and love those I work with. Peace and joy.

I pray at work when I wash dishes or am doing something where I don't have to keep my mind focused on something else (like taking people's orders or making drinks). Not the whole time, every day, but when I can. I also write prayers down as a letter sometimes. I think I'm generally too heavy in the area of prayer where I pray for needs / wants of myself and others. Because obviously I want to see God answer prayers for people who are sick, or the desires of my heart, or for His will to be done. I also tell Him what I'm thankful for a lot. I miss out on the part of listening a lot of times though. Listening in silence. Or just praising Him for who He is. Those are things I want to work on.

I only discovered biblehub.com this week, I hadn't ever used it before, and it's fantastic! It makes studying make a lot more sense to me. For every verse there are sermons that people have written too, and commentaries and a billion other things. So I came across these two quotes that I liked that were in a short sermon from C.H. Spurgeon:

"If not always shooting your arrows up to heaven, keep your bow well stringed."

"We cannot make the wind blow, but we can spread the sails, and when the Spirit comes we may be ready."

The second quote was actually more in reference to the part of the verse about being watchful, but it's still being watchful in prayer.


So, to sum up day one and day two... devote yourself to prayer! I'm pretty sure doing things this way will make me memorize it too. Lol. It's not the only way I will be studying/reading scripture, but this is an interesting thing to do. I'm aware of the "taking it out of context" possibility, in thinking about only one word or only one verse, but I am also reading the chapter in which this verse is in, so that I know the context.

One of my favorite thing in the bible is in Daniel where an angel comes to Daniel and says, "Daniel, I have come here to give you insight and understanding. The moment you began praying, a command was given. And now I am here to tell you what it was, for you are very precious to God." (9:22-23) Along with that, in chapter 10, this is also fascinating: An angel said, "Don't be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day you began to pray for understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your request has been heard in heaven. I have come to answer your prayer. But for twenty-one days the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia blocked my way. Then Michael, one of the archangels, came to help me, and I left him there with the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia." (10:12-13) There was a WAR amongst the angels and the "spirit prince" which I assume is like satan or one of his demons, that stopped God's command from being fulfilled right away, so another angel had to come and battle so that angel could go on!! And to think if Daniel had given up in his prayers!