The Power of Prayer
How we can pray for others
Whack!
That’s the sound of the imaginary two by four that smacked me in the face this past Friday.
If you know me, you know that I often get the Holy Spirit Special which is when I have a moment of realization that He is telling me — an imaginary two by four that is struck across my head to wake me up and humble me.
The reason I got struck was because of prayer. My prayer life, and in direct relation the prayer life of those closest to me.
You see, this past Friday, I had a job interview for a job that I really want. I was getting ready all throughout the morning to make it to the interview and I had several people let me know that they were praying for me — which was great.
But something didn’t feel right.
Now I know that they did pray for me, but through my nervousness and anxiety, I thought, what if they are just saying they are praying for me because it’s the right Christian thing to do? What if they say they’re praying for me but they’re too busy to do it so they’ll forget? I mean, how often do we tell someone who is going through a difficult, stressful, or life changing experience that we are praying for them, and really we don’t even do it? I’m guilty for doing that.
The stress that I felt, was that of when those who told me that they were praying for me, I wanted them not only pray for me but also pray with me. I may have been asking for a lot, but the way I was feeling, I really wanted to know for certain that these prayer warriors had my back and were really praying for me.
Paul writes in Ephesians 6:18, “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.”
I love this passage because Paul writes that we should be alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints. In other words, always be aware of what our brothers and sisters in Christ are dealing with and pray for them.
Prayer is a great thing. It allows us to talk to God, but it also gives us a comfort that is difficult to describe other than it relieves the nerves or other negative feelings we might have.
Here’s the application.
If you tend to not pray for others or you say you pray for them and don’t, then make up your mind. Do not deceive others or even worse, yourself. If you say you’re going to be praying, do it! Let your yes be a yes, or your no be a no! Do not say you’ll do something and end up not doing it. That isn’t cool.
If you pray for others, that’s great. Good for you, but the next step I want to challenge you with — as well as myself, is if you tell someone you are praying for them, no matter what the circumstances are, pray for them right there while you are with them. On the phone, in person, in a letter, it doesn’t matter. It goes such a long way for the person you are praying for if you stop everything you are doing and you pray for them. This act is telling them, I care about you, I care about what you are dealing with, you’re not alone in this, you are worth my time so let me lift you up in prayer.
It doesn’t matter what you are doing, the challenge is simple. If you know you need to pray for someone, whether they ask you or not, ask them if they are okay with you praying for them, then and there. Right where they are at. Be a blessing to them. It’ll help them, and it will help you too. And that’s a fact.
Be blessed.
