Persevering in Prayer
Wednesday of the First Week of Lent – February 25, 2015
ABBA AGATHON said, “I consider no other labor as difficult as prayer. When we are ready to pray, our spiritual enemies interfere. They understand it is only by making it difficult for us to pray that they can harm us. Other things will meet with success if we keep at it, but laboring at prayer is a war that will continue until we die.”
[Bernard Bangley, By Way of the Desert, p. 145.]
Most Christians struggle in one way or another with prayer. People often ask for tips in prayer. They want advice about how to pray. They want to know how to fend off distractions. My sense is that folks intuit that prayer is important, even crucial, but that most of us are looking for a magic formula that some of the saints and mystics know, but is withheld from the rest of us.
In short, we don’t want to struggle in prayer. We want it to be easy. So we look for a code or a key . . . just the right set of words to say . . . the book that unlocks the door . . . the saint who has prayer’s secret knowledge.
First, there is no magic formula. Those who have been earnest about prayer understand that prayer takes perseverance, not secret knowledge.
Prayer doesn’t always feel good. It does, however, engage us with God in what is real. As Abba Agathon said, “I consider no other labor as difficult as prayer.”
Paul commends Epaphras to the Colossian people as one “who is always wrestling for you in prayer” (Col. 4:12).
In prayer, we are not looking for an easy way, for a gilded path. In prayer, we begin where we are, as we are. In prayer, we discover God in that place.
ABBA AGATHON said, “I consider no other labor as difficult as prayer. When we are ready to pray, our spiritual enemies interfere. They understand it is only by making it difficult for us to pray that they can harm us. Other things will meet with success if we keep at it, but laboring at prayer is a war that will continue until we die.”
[Bernard Bangley, By Way of the Desert, p. 145.]
Most Christians struggle in one way or another with prayer. People often ask for tips in prayer. They want advice about how to pray. They want to know how to fend off distractions. My sense is that folks intuit that prayer is important, even crucial, but that most of us are looking for a magic formula that some of the saints and mystics know, but is withheld from the rest of us.
In short, we don’t want to struggle in prayer. We want it to be easy. So we look for a code or a key . . . just the right set of words to say . . . the book that unlocks the door . . . the saint who has prayer’s secret knowledge.
First, there is no magic formula. Those who have been earnest about prayer understand that prayer takes perseverance, not secret knowledge.
Prayer doesn’t always feel good. It does, however, engage us with God in what is real. As Abba Agathon said, “I consider no other labor as difficult as prayer.”
Paul commends Epaphras to the Colossian people as one “who is always wrestling for you in prayer” (Col. 4:12).
In prayer, we are not looking for an easy way, for a gilded path. In prayer, we begin where we are, as we are. In prayer, we discover God in that place.
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