Welcome to Day 4 of the Writing Life Challenge! My dream for this challenge is to start an online community of people dedicated to encouraging each other daily and challenging each other to grow in our faith in Jesus. If you’re just coming across the challenge, feel free to jump right in, either here or back at the very beginning (a very good place to start… Sorry. Sidetracked by a soundtrack in my head.)

Inspiration. The book of Colossians has been one of my favorite books of the Bible since my teen years. It’s full of advice for Christian living, and keeps giving advice right up until—and through!—the personal messages for individuals at the end. One of the instructional verses in the last chapter is Colossians 4:2, which says

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. (NIV)

Today we will consider what it means to devote ourselves to prayer.

Challenge. Today it’s your turn to do a little exploration of the Bible on your own. You probably already have an idea of what the word devote or devoted means (personally, I can’t get the song “Hopelessly Devoted To You” from the Grease soundtrack out of my head), but do you know how it’s used elsewhere in the Bible? Could knowing that give you a better understanding of the way it’s used in this verse?

Your task today is to search for other places the word devote or devoted is used in the Bible. (If you’re not sure how to do this, a good place to start is to look up Colossians 4:2 in Bible Hub and look at the list of related verses.) Then, pick a few of these to read and consider what it means to devote yourself to prayer. While you’re at it, don’t forget to pray! Pray that God will help you understand what is meant in this verse and in the others you read.

Participate. When you’re done, tell us what you read and learned in the comments below. Or, if you’d rather, visualize it in an Instagram post using the hashtag #writinglifeaugustchallenge!