What do you pray for people you’ve never met? Paul and Timothy prayed this for the believers in Colossae, a place they’d never been:
We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. (Colossians 1:9-12)
Nothing about health issues, or travel mercies, or hedges of protection (although all of those are worthy things to pray for). The heart of this prayer is that the Colossians would know God’s will so that they might live lives worthy of Christ and please him in every way.
The prayer is for knowledge, but not as an end in itself. Jesus had said, “Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.” (John 7:17) That’s the most important secret to knowing God’s will about anything; God does not reveal his will so that I can decide whether or not to obey it, he reveals it because I have already decided.
And as Paul and Timothy continue, it’s radical obedience that they’re praying for, not just showing up at church once a week and putting some money in the offering box. They want the Colossians, in their everyday lives, to be worthy of Christ. And they want the Colossians to please God in everything they do.
Take a moment and let that sink in. That’s not just a very bold prayer, it’s an impossible one. How can sinful humans possibly live lives that are in any way worthy of Christ? How can they possibly please God in everything? They can’t, and I think that’s part of the point of this prayer. What Paul and Timothy are asking for is something supernatural. Something that can’t even come close to happening unless God himself does it. Unless being led by the Spirit of God (Romans 8:14) stops being just a theology and becomes a lived, everyday reality.
Paul and Timothy prayed this for the Colossians. Am I willing to pray it for myself? This is a call, and a prayer, to live a life radically different from the way I’ve lived up to now. Am I willing to give up every sin? To treat every one of my possessions, including every penny in my bank account, as belonging to Christ and not to me? To tell the people around me – my family, my friends, my employer – everything God gives me to tell them, no matter how they might react? Am I willing, in other words, to live every moment of my life as a son of God should live? To be transformed by the Holy Spirit into the image of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18); not someday when I’m finally ready to settle down, not after I’ve had a few more fun experiences, but right now? Today?
The question is not whether I’m able to do all that – I already know I’m not. It can only happen supernaturally. But am I willing? Am I willing to “live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way?”