1 Tim 2:1    I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone

  

Why ever do we need constant encouragement to pray??? We do! I don't know any spiritual discipline that need more encouraging to do than prayer, and yet most Christians will agree that prayer is important. Why is it important we're not quite sure but we have this feeling that it is. We realise that God knows what we're going to say before we say it, but yet he encourages us to pray.

Sometimes it's almost like He waits until we pray before He moves. And then we pray and are slightly surprised that He answers, things happen, people change and so on. Prayer, we say, works! Except it's not a mechanical thing, it's a relationship thing. When we mechanically pray ‘shopping lists', it seems tedious and boring and unfulfilling. On those other occasions, when we catch a sense of God being there and we talk honestly to Him, it seems completely different and we come away changed and sure that He's heard us. Prayer was alive and vibrant and we felt in touch with God, how wonderful. If only it could be like that all the time.

 

So why do we need ‘urging' to pray? Why does Paul have to use this sort of language? Perhaps because it is a spiritual issue and in the spiritual realm there is opposition and it is NOT like we described in the paragraph above. Someone in a group says, “You know we really ought to pray about this” and they really mean it. Someone else agrees with them – and they really mean it, and yet an hour later still no one has prayed! But I've lost count how many times I've seen what we described in that paragraph above. Sometimes, we catch it, we catch a sense of the thread of the Holy Spirit's direction and faith rises, and prayer is exciting, but it's not always like that. Somehow, it seems, there is opposition that really needs serious effort to overcome to get down and pray, so yes, we do need urging. So do it! Pray!