Power in Prayer: Train Daily

by Marilynn Chadwick

I’ve always loved sports—so it naturally follows that I love athletes. I am married to a former basketball player and mother to a volleyball player, a basketball player, and a swimmer. There is much to be learned about our spiritual life from observing the personal discipline of athletes.

The Apostle Paul must have loved sports, too. He likens the hard work of training for a sport to his own life of faith. “I run straight to the goal with purpose in every step,” he writes. “I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should so that after preaching to others, I will not be disqualified for the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:26 NLT).

Instead of “discipline,” some translations use the word “buffet,” a word which means “to treat roughly.” The word buffet came even more alive for me one summer when I watched our youngest son along with hundreds of highly ranked swimmers compete in their national championship meet. After the grueling hours of practice, these athletes were “buff” in every way.

Finely chiseled muscles bore witness to hours in the pool, hours with weights, hours of running, all for the love of the sport. With a body builder, the goal is a muscular body. But for a swimmer, the body is simply a tool to use for the sport. Their sculpted physique is not for show—rather it enables these athletes to swim incredibly fast.

Sports provide a great metaphor for the training necessary to develop the habit of continual and effectual prayer. It’s not that prayer itself is always hard. Often, it’s like breathing. But to stay alert, mindful, available to listen—this kind of prayer can be hard in our fast-paced world. And getting up early to carve out time to read God’s Word and pray takes discipline and commitment.

Persistence in prayer when we are in pain, when all we can see with our “natural” eyes looks hopeless, and when answers are slow in coming can be grinding. No wonder Paul tells the church in Colossae about his friend, Epaphras. Paul told them that behind the scenes, this guy was continually “laboring” in prayer for them (Colossians 4:12,13). The Greek word for “labor” is agonizomai, from which we get “agony.”

For a swimmer, practice can be repetitious, exhausting, even agonizing. There are competitions when athletes feel stuck. There seems to be no progress—personal times don’t budge. But then there are breakthrough races when times are shattered, records broken. These are the rewards for all the work and daily practices. Why do swimmers train, and train, and train some more? Simply for the love of the race.

I hope you will develop such a love for God’s Word and an expectancy of answered prayer that it’s worth it to train day after day. You may not see immediate answers, but God has promised to reward your faithfulness.

Remember—God is “a rewarder of those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). I truly believe there are mountain-moving answers and breakthrough races of faith in store if you put your whole heart into prayer.