Laboring In Prayer: Colossians 4:10-18, especially vs. 12: "Epaphras, who is one of you, a bondservant of Christ, greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God." The Epistle to the Colossians shows plainly that the Apostles believed in prayer as the primary aid for fulfilling the will of God. St. Paul, for one, declared: "We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you...that you may be filled with the knowledge of [God's] will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding" (Col. 1:3,9). To further underline this truth, St. Paul held up Epaphras to the Colossians as an example of one who rightly and fervently labored in prayer for them so that the Colossians might "stand perfect and complete" in God's will (vs.12 as quoted above).
Archimandrite Ioannikios Kotsonis teaches us that, "You cannot be called a Christian, if you do not pray often. All the saints prayed continually and with ardor;" and he explains why: "'In vain,' ...is every spiritual building, every spiritual guard without the presence of the Lord; consequently, 'in vain' is every work of ours without prayer. Prayer makes the presence of the Lord alive and changes every work, which could have been fruitless, into light and glory to the Heavenly Father." However, for prayer to be fruitful in this manner, as St. Epaphras and St. Paul show, one must accept being Christ's slave, struggling in prayer, and keeping faith in God.
St. Paul calls Epaphras a "bondservant" of Christ. The word is "doulos," or "slave," in the original. The translators have used the word "bondservant" to emphasize the completeness of Epaphras' surrender of his life and fortune, his desires and will to the Lord. Whatever he might have called his own, he turned over to God, placing all at the disposal of Christ Jesus.
St. Theophan similarly stresses the necessity of giving the Lord Jesus total control: "You must approach prayer with an attitude such that you desire only the Divine Will, and not your own, alike in asking and in receiving what you have asked for....In a word, let it be in your mind and heart completely, to unite your will with the will of God, to obey it in everything, and in no way to desire to incline God's will toward your own." St. Theophan's description of releasing control to the Lord shows why "slavery" is such an appropriate image. Submitting like a slave is the basic precondition to effective prayer, for it destroys self-serving. A Christian does not pray to God as if the Lord were a "bellhop," ready to serve up one's desires of the moment.
Second and necessarily, we must struggle in prayer. St. Theophan says, "You should always say your prayers with tireless diligence....For humble patience, tirelessness and persistence in prayer conquer the unconquerable God and incline Him to mercy." To which St. John of the Ladder adds: "A firm beginning will certainly be useful for us when we later grow slack. A soul that is strong at first, but then relaxes, is spurred on by the memory of its former zeal. And in this way new wings are often obtained." Prayer is a struggle against the grasping of the self and its insatiable passions, which St. John describes as "a greedy kitchen dog addicted to barking." Further, as St. John adds, "We have very evil, dangerous, cunning, and unscrupulous foes, who hold fire in their hands and try to burn the temple of God" (our hearts and souls).
Finally, St. Theophan tells us that to give wings to our prayer we must have a "firm faith not only in God's measureless bounty and in the immutable truth of His promise to hear us when we call to Him, even before our prayer is ended, but most of all in the power of the special dispensation of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who assumed flesh for our sakes, suffered death on the cross, was resurrected, and ascended into heaven where He ceaselessly intercedes for us."
Fulfil, O Lord, the desires and petitions of Thy servants as may be most expedient for us.