COLOSSIANS‬ ‭4:2-4‬ ‭‬‬

Paul notes that the church is to devote themselves to prayer. Another way of stating this is that the church is to be disciplined in its prayer. It is to have practice and form. Unfortunately, the church has removed itself from this truth. Instead prayer is often turned into a gloried gossip fest, or grocery list rather than the time of heartfelt communion that it is to be. Often prayer has been used to be a place where one empties their woes before God. In practice, prayer should be a place where one brings praises to God about their woes. They should not leave emptied but instead filled. They should walk away from a time of prayer with acute clarity and sobriety that mirrors the discourse between significant others about meaningful things. Sadly many will never experience this type of sobriety from a time of prayer because they never understood that it was the intended blessing to cultivate. Ultimately, prayer should be meaningful dialogue with the God of the universe. If we could have that experience at our fingertips at this very moment, it would seem that reading him a grocery list of things you might need would seem trite and wasteful. We are called to cultivate that dialogue into a stronger sense of his personality, imprint and intent on his creation, not waste it with complaining or emptying ourselves.