Episode 565: Episode 565 - "Jesus, Teach Us How to Pray!"

All right, we're in Colossians 4.

And last week, we looked at devote yourselves to prayer.

Devote yourselves to prayer.

We talked about the importance of prayer and just what is prayer and how do you figure it out and that kind of thing.

And we unpacked a lot of that last week.

This week, we're going to talk about this next phrase.

We're going to begin talking about this next phrase called keeping alert in it.

It says devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it.

Alert in what? Alert in prayer.

staying alert in prayer.

And what is what is Paul saying there? Well, I think one thing Paul is telling us is that he knows human nature.

He knows that it's hard for us just to stop, pull over like we have had to do sometimes with these prayer requests for this show, pull over and and just get your head together.

and talk to God about things.

There are many times back during my college days where I would just take drives out in the country and I would pull over the side of a country road and just turn the engine off and I would just pray and talk out loud to God.

and just tell him what's going on, you know? Can't fall asleep while you're praying, you know, like that, right? So be alert, be watchful.

What does he mean by that? Well, obviously he means to be awake, to be aware.

Sometimes staying awake is the biggest challenge for some of us sometimes.

But the idea of watching really comes from the book of Nehemiah.

As Nehemiah was overseeing the rebuilding of the walls and gates of Jerusalem, chapter 4, verse 9 says this, says, nevertheless, we made our prayer to God and set a watch against them, that's the enemy, day and night.

I mean, there's not a cryptic meaning here.

It means to watch, to be alert, right? that as you are going about your life, as you are praying, to be watchful.

Watchful for what? Watchful for the enemy's attacks.

Watchful for temptation to be lazy.