What Does it Mean to Contend Hard in Prayer?

Has anyone ever asked you to “pray hard” for a concern in their life? When this has been asked of me, I have honestly wondered what it means to pray “hard.” What does that even look like, and why would it matter in prayer? I’m perplexed by this request to pray hard because I question if my simple prayers are not enough.

As I intend to grow in my prayer life, I’ve been paying closer attention to examples of prayer in the Scriptures and phrases like “how hard I am contending” and “I strenuously contend” when the apostle Paul writes of his prayers for the church in Colossae. (Colossians 1:29; 2:1) Some Bible translations use words like “labor” or “struggle” in these verses to convey an athletic metaphor, which emphasizes that it is no easy task to pray for people. It can feel like an Olympic event!

The picture that comes to my mind with this type of physical struggle is an athlete running so hard that he passes out at the finish line. I’ve certainly seen this happen through the years of watching my sons run cross-country races! Is this what Paul is talking about when he contends hard in prayer?!

To learn more about a word or phrase or a topic in the Bible, it is my practice to search the Scriptures to discover how Jesus approached it or demonstrated it for His followers. Jesus talks about prayer with His disciples on several occasions and models prayer in significant ways. In John 15, Jesus says,

“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” – John 15:7 (NKJV)

So, prayer begins with abiding in Jesus as we consume and contemplate His words, which results in a conversation with God in prayer. Preaching on this passage in 1888, Charles Spurgeon said,

“Prayer is the natural out-gushing of a soul in communion with Jesus. Just as the leaf and the fruit will come out of the vine without any conscious effort on the part of the branch but simply because of its living union with the stem, so prayer buds and blossoms and produces fruit out of souls abiding in Jesus.”

So perhaps prayer is not a personal effort after all?! It is an “out-gushing” response to who we know God to be and what He has done for us in Christ. If we don’t have our own words, we can pray verses from the Psalms or other scriptures and trust that our souls will abide and commune with Jesus in those conversations.

“We pray beyond what we can know, believe, or drum up in ourselves,” says Tish Harrison Warren in her book about praying the nighttime Compline from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. And guess what, we don’t need a lot of words! In fact, Jesus warns against lengthy babbling in prayer because our Heavenly Father knows what we need before we even ask Him for anything (Matthew 6:7).

I agree that praying God’s Word aligns us with Him in a soul-filling, soul-changing way.

Jesus gives examples of prayer in John 17 with the words He prayed for Himself, His disciples, and all Believers, and of course, we have the “Lord’s Prayer” as a prime example of a framework of prayer that has served His followers for more than two millennia (Matthew 6:9-13). Certainly, we have the “what” to pray, but where in the Bible do we see the “how” and “why” to pray? Again, let’s look to Jesus.

Before an extremely dark and difficult night, we get a picture of Jesus instructing his disciples to pray so they will not fall into temptation. He tells them to pray multiple times, and then He withdraws from them to pray on His own. While they do the opposite of praying hard and they actually fall asleep, we see Jesus praying in anguish on the Mount of Olives.

Luke records that angels appeared to Him and strengthened Him and that Jesus “prayed more earnestly” so that His sweat was like drops of blood (Luke 22:43-44). Matthew and Mark record that Jesus “fell with His face to the ground” in prayer (Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:35).

Of course, these narratives provide snapshots for us of our Lord’s display of what “contending hard” in prayer may look like as He was working on building God’s kingdom! He shows a physical response to God’s will for Him in his anguished prayers, but keep in mind this passage of scripture is descriptive, not necessarily instructive.

I appreciate what Tish Harrison Warren says in her book, Prayer in the Night, “For the Christian, the postures of prayer and work are interwoven: ora et labora, pray and work. We work as prayer and pray as work. And our prayer and our work transform each other.”

Perhaps this is what Paul meant when he told the Colossians that he was contending hard for them because his praying and ministering of the gospel were so interconnected. He was faithfully praying that the Christians were “encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:2-3).

No doubt, it’s hard work to faithfully pray for people!

It’s also not easy to share the life-changing gospel with them. I think we can agree that this prayer and work go together, hand-in-hand. Therefore, I plan to answer confidently the next time someone asks me to “pray hard” for them that I will certainly seek the Bible and go to the Lord on their behalf. And I hope I will pray with them in the moment, by God’s grace, and share with them some treasures of His wisdom.

In conclusion, I know what “contending hard in prayer” does not mean. It does not mean I have to work really hard to sweat blood, fall on my face at the finish line, use a lot of words, or go on and on in a public gathering of prayer. It does not mean that I need to stir up emotions to convince God with my pleas. These responses may happen to a person in prayer, but they are not what defines strenuously contending in prayer.

Instead, the work of sharing God’s truth from His Word is accompanied by prayers for people to know Him and experience His salvation in Jesus. This, I’ve come to understand is exactly where followers of Jesus are called to labor and struggle, as Paul did for the Colossians. So, let’s agree to “pray hard” for one another without hesitation.