Stay alert

 Keep alert and watchful in prayer, says Watchman Nee.

Nee, a great Chinese Christian who died in a Communist Chinese prison camp, says Satan attacks prayer more than anything else in the Christian life - trying to distract believers from this great work on behalf of God's kingdom.

In A Balanced Life, Nee outlines Satan's tactics in fighting prayer and suggests how we can thwart his efforts. 

He bases his comments on the apostle Paul's words in Ephesians 6:18: "Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion.  Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere."

He touches on five areas where we need to be watchful and active:

• The time of prayer: Satan tries to discourage us from prayer, dropping into our minds a desire to sleep or put off prayer for whatever reason.  We must respond by guarding a regular time of prayer.  In fact, we must pray that God will protect that prayer time;
• Use of our prayer time:  Often our thoughts "begin to wander and become confused" during our prayer times or we become drowsy.  So, before we pray, we should ask God to enable us to pray without being hindered or sleepy, and to help us pray with "spirit and concentration";
• The wording of our prayers:  Satan is quite happy when we pray in a scattergun fashion, failing to hit the mark on the issue we are praying about.  Nee says we should keep our focus on what we are really asking God to do and not get distracted by other things;
• Thorough prayer: Sometimes, prayer warriors too easily take one shot at the prayer problem when they should cover all eventualities.  An effective praying person "will use all kinds of prayers to surround as with a net the thing he prays for so that the adversary can do nothing"; and
• Follow-up prayer: Satan will try to undermine our prayers for others by changing his methods.  We need to be watchful, noting any change in the person we are praying for or in the problem we are praying about.  If we notice a change, we should adjust our prayers to deal with that change.

Nee's words carry authority because he practiced what he preached.

Satan may have thought he silenced this great Christian in a Chinese prison in the 1950s.

Instead, Nee's words about his Saviour and the Christian life have spread throughout the world.

May we pray with the same passion and precision and power.